Submit transactions to the blockchain in Plutus

Question

Currently my workflow is like this:

1. write a validator script in Plutus
2. test the script in by creating functions/endpoints to submit transactions to Plutus.Trace (Emulator)
3. if the test goes well, I serialize the script and get a script.plutus file
4. test the serialized script in the blockchain (preprod or mainnet) using cardano-cli or other front-end tools (like lucid or mesh)

Step 4 is quite laborious. It requires that you find the right syntaxes in the front-end tools that are equivalent to Plutus’ in step 2. You might not find one. Or your tools of choice may not yet support state-of-the-art features your dapp needs. And, of course, if the test fails and the validator script needs changes, you have to go back to step 1. Going through 2-4 all over again.

So I figure: if I can submit transactions to the blockchain right there in Plutus, life will be much easier. That would eliminate step 3-4 and speedup the development immeasurably. That would also reduce bugs and errors when translating between multiple platforms/environments.

Is there a way to achieve that?

Or, is there a better/faster workflow?

Answer 1

the original vision was to use Plutus Application Backends, unfortunately the development is lagging behind.

We're still early in the development ecosystem, so what you described is mostly the one we can use for now.