Expose ic-wasm interface from dfx

[sesi200]

@lastmjs requests this here.

I’ve been using ic-cdk-optimizer and am attempting to switch over to ic-wasm. These tools are essential for Azle and Kybra, the TypeScript and Python CDKs. One issue of complication that arises when developers try to use Azle and Kybra, is that each CDK must install ic-cdk-optimizer or ic-wasm for the developer, or expect them to install these tools. Requiring any kind of Rust tooling for TypeScript and Python devs is undesirable.

Basically, can we incorporate ic-wasm into the dfx build process somehow, especially so that developers don’t have to independently install ic-wasm?

[smallstepman]

I wonder how hard would it be to compile ic-wasm to dynlib or wasm, so that it will be possible to run it from other languages and reuse the current codebase at the same time

[sesi200]

Interesting, but not really relevant to this discussion I think. For this it'd be enough to have it available under $(dfx cache show)/ic-wasm or something like that just so other tools don't have to download it separately

[smallstepman]

TIL

[lwshang]

Since this merged PR, dfx default to run ic-wasm shrink pass during canister build. No need to install ic-wasm binary.

This feather was included since dfx v0.12.0-beta.3.

[lastmjs]

If I understand @lwshang correctly, once dfx 12 is released this feature request should be fully implemented. Correct?

[sesi200]

Your call, Jordan. I think the currently important parts (shrinking and metadata manipulation) are covered with dfx 0.12, but the utility itself is not reachable