# ewasm/design

Ewasm Design Overview and Specification

Repository: https://github.com/ewasm/design
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ewasm-design
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: ethereum, webassembly, ewasm, specification, eth1
Archived: true
Last push: 2022-09-08T17:40:20+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:39:23.370411+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3834, "days_push": 1455, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1021, forks 127 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:15.700628+00:00)

## What it is
The design overview and specification repository for Ethereum flavored WebAssembly (ewasm), a restricted Wasm subset intended as a successor to EVM1 for Ethereum smart contracts. It documents VM semantics, contract interfaces, the Ethereum environment interface, system contracts, and instruction metering.

## Use cases
- understand the ewasm smart contract specification
- learn how WebAssembly could replace the EVM
- implement an ewasm virtual machine
- study Ethereum contract metering and determinism rules
- research the EVM to ewasm upgrade path

## When to choose
- you are researching or implementing an ewasm-compatible VM or toolchain
- you need the authoritative design documents for Ethereum's Wasm contract interface

## When to avoid
- you need a runnable implementation rather than a specification
- you want a production-ready smart contract execution environment - ewasm was never shipped on mainnet and the design is largely dormant

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: maintenance
- function: documentation, interpreter, compiler
- domain: blockchain
- platform: cross-platform, wasm
- tags: ethereum, ewasm, webassembly, specification, evm, smart-contracts, eth1, cryptocurrency, virtual-machine

## Member repositories
- ewasm/design (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:15.700628+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T07:08:49.894291+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/ewasm/design (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:15.700628+00:00, sha d8b25c5b6872)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.