solidity-expert, a GitBook tutorial that ships as a GitHub Pages site

A curriculum, not a library

The repository presents itself as a tutorial for EVM chain dapp full stack development, and the repository layout matches that framing. The listed learning goals run from Solidity basics and advanced usage through contract security, then out to third party tooling such as the OpenZeppelin contract library, infrastructure services like Moralis, Chainlink and Tenderly, the mainstream web3 libraries web3.js and ethers.js, off-chain tooling such as subgraphs and block scanning services, major protocols including Uniswap, Compound, Aave, staking and NFTs, and the React knowledge needed to put a front end on top. There is also a hands-on project link. The disclaimer is unusually direct for an open source project: the tutorial is to be understood as personal study notes, for learning use only and not for commercial purposes, and parts of the content reference other authors, with links given and an invitation to point out any infringement. That framing is important, because it tells you what kind of artifact you are reading before you start.

A book built with honkit and a pile of GitBook plugins

The toolchain tells you how old this project is and what maintaining it involves. The `package.json` lists two dev dependencies, `hardhat` at `^2.11.1` and `honkit` at `^3.7.1`, and three scripts.

"scripts": {
    "build": "honkit build",
    "serve": "honkit serve",
    "deploy": "gh-pages -d _book"
  }

The dependency list is a long tail of GitBook plugins: an outline schema package, gh-pages, gitalk for comment support, anchors, canonical links, codeblock labels, a collapsible menu, a custom favicon, Google Analytics, GitHub links, issue feedback, heading anchors, include-codeblock, a JavaScript console, a language picker, outline, a page table-of-contents button, rich quotes, a section extension, a sidebar ad, toggle chapters, a summary-to-path helper and a Mermaid plugin. That is roughly thirty packages, most of them community plugins, and each one is a place where a build can break on a dependency bump.

Two editions, one book configuration

The repository layout shows a bilingual book rather than a single site. The top level holds `cn/` and `en/` directories side by side, plus `docs/`, a `book.json` configuration, a `LANGS.md` file, a `package.json`, a `publish.sh` script, an `.nvmrc` file that pins the Node version used for the build, and a `package-lock.json` that locks the plugin tree exactly. The `LANGS.md` file and the paired language directories are the standard arrangement for a GitBook project that publishes multiple editions, where the language list is declared in one place and the root `book.json` is shared. The `publish.sh` script and the `deploy` npm script together suggest the release path is a local shell step that runs the build and pushes the `_book` output to the `gh-pages` branch, which is what puts the site at the address given as the project homepage.

Diagrams and code blocks are first class in the book

Two of the plugins carry most of the pedagogical weight. The Mermaid plugin means diagrams in the text are written as Mermaid source and rendered at build time, which suits a curriculum that has to explain protocol flows, contract interactions and request sequences rather than just list syntax. The include-codeblock plugin does the same for code: sample contracts live in their own files and are pulled into the chapter text, so the code in the book and the code in the repository cannot drift apart. The language picker plugin supports a multi-language book, the codeblock labels plugin annotates code blocks, and the collapsible menu and toggle chapters plugins control how a long table of contents behaves in the sidebar. Add the Google Analytics plugin for traffic measurement and gitalk for issue-based commenting, and the project is a fairly complete reading platform rather than a set of Markdown files.

The author's framing and the wider material

The README introduces the author as one of the first blockchain educators in China, focused on blockchain education since 2017 across Bitcoin, Ethereum and Fabric, currently based in Singapore and working on overseas DeFi, DEX and metaverse business directions. Alongside the repository, the project points to a more advanced tutorial site, a video course channel on YouTube and a Bilibili series, a personal site and a Telegram group. That distinction matters if you are choosing what to read: the book is the entry point and the rest are the paid or extended path. The description of the repository also frames the project as a GitHub open source project and asks readers to star it, and the topic tags name smart contracts, Solidity, Solana and a work in progress marker. The Solana tag is the one loose end, since nothing in the README explains what Solana content the book contains, and the Solidity content is the subject the goals list describes.

What you get and what you do not

It is worth being clear about the shape of the payoff. This is a reading path with a fixed order: syntax first, then the tooling around it, then the libraries, then the off-chain services, then real protocols, then the front end, then a project. It is not a reference you can query for a single function, and it is not a toolchain you can install to ship a contract faster. The hardhat dev dependency signals that the examples were written against a hardhat project, and hardhat is pinned at the `^2.11.1` line, so a reader following along today will be adapting a project setup that was current when the book was written. There are no GitHub releases, no tags and no versioning of the text, so there is no way to tell whether a chapter was revised after a protocol change. The project also does not state a licence, and the disclaimer restricts use to personal study, which is a different thing from an open source licence grant.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt this book if you are moving from front end work into EVM contract development and want one ordered path that starts at Solidity syntax and ends with a deployed project, and skip it if you need reference documentation for a specific protocol or a maintained library, because this is a course with a disclaimer that it is personal notes for study rather than for commercial use. Verify three things before you commit time to it: that the English edition covers the same chapters as the Chinese one, since the repository keeps them in separate `en/` and `cn/` directories; whether the topic list matches your intent, since it names Solidity and smart contracts but also carries Solana, which the README does not explain; and that the tooling still builds, since the project depends on an older hardhat line and on honkit and a long list of GitBook plugins.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. dukedaily/solidity-expert on GitHub
2. Issues
3. Project website
4. README