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Verify a Proof On-Chain on Sui

This guide builds and submits a proof-verification call to a local Sui network (localnet).

The Sui path currently uses the native Halo2 KZG verifier included in the customized sui CLI. The zkmove CLI builds a Sui move-call descriptor, and sui client call submits it.

Prerequisites:

  • You have generated a proof with zkmove vm.
  • You have deployed the Sui verifier API package.
  • You have published the verifier artifacts and saved:
  • VERIFIER_API_PACKAGE
  • PARAMS_OBJECT_ID
  • VK_OBJECT_ID

Select the proof artifacts from the current proof run before continuing:

export PROOF_PATH="$(find example/proofs -type f -name 'test_fibonacci-*.proof' -print | sort | tail -n 1)"
test -f "$PROOF_PATH"
export RUN_ID="$(basename "$PROOF_PATH" .proof)"
export PUBS_PATH="example/proofs/${RUN_ID}.instance"
test -f "$PUBS_PATH"

Install jq

This guide uses jq to inspect JSON transaction outputs from sui client --json. Install it before submitting the verification call.

On macOS:

brew install jq

On Ubuntu or Debian:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jq

Verify the installation:

jq --version

1. Build the Verify-Proof Data

Run from the halo2-verifier.move repository root. Replace the file names and object IDs with the values from your circuit and deployment:

export K_VALUE=$(jq -r .k example/setup/metadata.json)
export VERIFY_DIR="txns/sui-verify/${RUN_ID}"
mkdir -p "$VERIFY_DIR"

zkmove sui build-verify-proof-native-txn \
  --pubs-path "$PUBS_PATH" \
  --proof-path "$PROOF_PATH" \
  --verifier-api-package $VERIFIER_API_PACKAGE \
  --params-object-id $PARAMS_OBJECT_ID \
  --vk-object-id $VK_OBJECT_ID \
  --k $K_VALUE \
  --output "$VERIFY_DIR"

The command writes a file like:

$VERIFY_DIR/${RUN_ID}-verify-proof-native.txn

The file contains a JSON move-call descriptor with package, module, function, args, and cli_args. For Sui, use this file as a data container: the proof may be larger than Sui's 16 KiB pure-argument limit, so do not submit this generated native_verifier::verify call directly unless you know the proof argument is small enough.

2. Upload the Proof in Chunks

Sui limits the size of pure vector<u8> arguments. Use the verifier API's artifact_builder module to upload the proof bytes in chunks. The halo2-verifier.move repository provides a wrapper script for this flow. Run from the halo2-verifier.move repository root:

scripts/upload_sui_proof.sh \
  --verifier-api-package "$VERIFIER_API_PACKAGE" \
  --verify-txn "$VERIFY_DIR/${RUN_ID}-verify-proof-native.txn" \
  --out-dir "txns/sui-proof-upload/${RUN_ID}"

After the script finishes, it prints PROOF_BUILDER and PROOF_DIGEST, and writes all values needed by Step 3 to txns/sui-proof-upload/${RUN_ID}/sui-proof-builder.env.

3. Submit the Verification

Load the proof-builder values into your current shell:

source "txns/sui-proof-upload/${RUN_ID}/sui-proof-builder.env"

Call artifact_builder::verify_proof_builder. This consumes the proof builder, checks its digest, and verifies the proof without passing the whole proof as one pure argument:

sui client --json -q call \
  --package $VERIFIER_API_PACKAGE \
  --module artifact_builder \
  --function verify_proof_builder \
  --gas-budget 1000000000 \
  --args \
    $PARAMS_OBJECT_ID \
    $VK_OBJECT_ID \
    $PROOF_BUILDER \
    "$PROOF_DIGEST" \
    "$PUBLIC_INPUTS_JSON" \
    $KZG_VARIANT \
    $K_PRESENT \
    $K_VALUE \
  > "$VERIFY_DIR/verify-result.json"

Any funded localnet account can submit the verification call.

Check that the transaction succeeded:

jq '.effects.status' "$VERIFY_DIR/verify-result.json"

A valid proof returns a successful transaction status. An invalid proof aborts inside verifier_api::artifact_builder::verify_proof_builder.

If jq reports a parse error, inspect the file directly:

cat "$VERIFY_DIR/verify-result.json"

That usually means sui client call wrote a plain-text execution error instead of JSON. An abort with code 6 from artifact_builder::verify_proof_builder means the proof digest matched and the native verifier returned false. For proofs generated from a downsized circuit, first check that the generated verify txn has .args[5] == true and .args[6] set to the same k used when proving.