the simplified overview of ERC-4337 so that developers can get a basic understanding of the different components and how they can be pieced together to build their applications. more details for ERC-4337
There are four main components to ERC-4337: a User Operation, Bundler, EntryPoint, and Smart Account (aka Contract Account). These can be supplemented by Paymasters and Aggregators.
UserOperations are pseudo-transaction objects that are used to execute transactions with contract accounts. These are created by your app.
Bundlers are actors that package UserOperations from a mempool and send them to the EntryPoint contract on the blockchain.
EntryPoint is a singleton smart contract that handles the verification and execution logic for transactions.
Contract Accounts are smart contract accounts owned by a user.
Paymasters are optional smart contract accounts that can sponsor transactions for Contract Accounts.
Aggregators are optional smart contracts that can validate signatures for multiple Contract Accounts.
User Operations
All components of ERC-4337 revolve around a pseudo-transaction object called a UserOperation which is used to execute actions through a smart contract account. It captures the intent of what the user wants to do. This isn't to be mistaken for a regular transaction type.
Field
Type
Description
sender
address
The address of the smart account sending the User Operation.
nonce
uint256
Anti-replay protection.
initCode
bytes
Code used to deploy the sender if not yet on-chain.
callData
bytes
Data that's passed to the sender for execution.
callGasLimit
uint256
Gas limit for the execution phase.
verificationGasLimit
uint256
Gas limit for the verification phase.
preVerificationGas
uint256
Gas to compensate the bundler for the overhead to submit the User Operation.
maxFeePerGas
uint256
Similar to EIP-1559 maxFeePerGas
maxPriorityFeePerGas
uint256
Similar to EIP-1559 maxPriorityFeePerGas.
paymasterAndData
bytes
Paymaster contract address and any extra data the paymaster contract needs for verification and execution. When set to 0x or the zero address, no paymaster is used.
signature
bytes
Used to validate a User Operation during verification.
Bundler
A Bundler is a class of actors that sends User Operations to the EntryPoint. Specifically, it:
The EntryPoint is a singleton contract that acts as a central entity for all ERC-4337 Smart Accounts and Paymasters. It coordinates the verification and execution of a User Operation. For this reason, it's important for all implementations of an EntryPoint to be audited and immutable.
Smart Account
The Smart Account is an end user's account. At minimum it needs to check whether or not it will accept a User Operation during the verification loop.
Additional features to support other account functions like social recovery and multi-operations can be added here too.
Paymaster
The Paymaster is an entity that is able to sponsor the gas fees of a UserOperation. It is required to do two things:
Check whether or not it will accept a User Operation during the verification loop. Run any required fee logic in the execution loop. An example of Paymaster logic could be to withdraw a certain amount of ERC-20 tokens from the Smart Account after the UserOperation is executed. This allows users to pay for gas in any currency they choose.
Aggregator
The Aggregator is an entity that is trusted by Contract Accounts to validate signatures. They are often used to aggregate signatures from multiple UserOperations together.
Example
userop.js is an open-source library for building ERC-4337 User Operations. Similar to how ethers.js allows developers to easily create traditional EVM transactions, userop.js allows developers to create and send User Operations to ERC-4337 Bundlers.
userop.js is available as an npm package here. To install, simply use your package manager of choice.
import { ethers} from"hardhat";import { Client,Presets} from"userop";asyncfunctioncreateAccount() {let rpcUrl ="bunlder rpc url";let [wallet] =awaitethers.getSigners()constclient=awaitClient.init(rpcUrl);constsimpleAccount=awaitPresets.Builder.SimpleAccount.init( wallet,// Any object compatible with ethers.Signer rpcUrl, {salt:4 } );console.log("create aa account address:",simpleAccount.getSender());//create account should fund to aa account to pay gasfeeawait ( awaitwallet.sendTransaction({ to:simpleAccount.getSender(), value:ethers.utils.parseEther("0.1") })).wait()constresponse=awaitclient.sendUserOperation(simpleAccount);console.log("result :",response)let result =awaitresponse.wait();console.log("result:",result)}