Introducing Noir

This version of the book is being released with the public alpha. There will be a lot of features that are missing in this version, however the syntax and the feel of the language will mostly be completed.

What is Noir?

Noir is a domain specific language for creating and verifying proofs. It's design choices are influenced heavily by Rust.

What's new about Noir?

Noir is simple and flexible in its design, as it does not compile immediately to a fixed NP-complete language. Instead, Noir compiles to an intermediate language (ACIR), which itself can be compiled to an arithmetic circuit (if choosing to target Aztec's barretenberg backend) or a rank-1 constraint system (if choosing to target an R1CS backend like Arkwork's Marlin backend, or others).

This in itself brings up a few challenges within the design process, but allows one to decouple the programming language completely from the backend. This is similar in theory to LLVM.

Who is Noir for?

Noir can be used for a variety of purposes.

Ethereum Developers

Noir currently includes a command to publish a contract which verifies your Noir program. This will be modularised in the future; however, as of the alpha, you can use the contract command to create a verifier contract.

Protocol Developers

As a protocol developer, you may not want to use the Aztec backend due to it not being a fit for your stack, or maybe you simply want to use a different proving system. Since Noir does not compile to a specific proof system, it is possible for protocol developers to replace the PLONK-based proving system with a different proving system altogether.

Blockchain developers

As a blockchain developer, you will be constrained by parameters set by your blockchain (for example, the proving system and smart contract language has been pre-defined). In order for you to use Noir in your blockchain, a proving system backend and a smart contract interface must be implemented for it.