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Pebble

Built with ❤️ by Harmonic Laboratories

This documentation is for pebble. Feel free to ask for help in the Harmonic Labs' discord server

Introduction​

Pebble is a strongly-typed domain-specific language (DSL) for writing Cardano smart contracts. A simple, yet rock solid, functional language with an imperative bias, targeting UPLC.

At its heart, Pebble is:

  • A language: with its own parser, type checker, and compiler.
  • A toolchain: including a CLI, compiler, and integrations for DApp workflows.
  • A bridge: between human-readable smart contract code and low-level Plutus Core.

Pebble is statement-oriented (with constructs like let, if, while, match, return), but under the hood, everything still compiles down to Plutus Core expressions, maintaining full functional correctness.

This makes Pebble feel familiar for developers coming from JavaScript, TypeScript, Rust, or Solidity, while retaining the strict guarantees of Plutus.

To sum it all up, pebble is a first-class language with its own syntax and compiler, but still exposes onchain/offchain type ecosystems for contract and DApp integrations.

Getting started

See Installation to begin your journey in pebble

Why Pebble?​

Cardano contracts require precision, and writing them directly in Plutus Core or Haskell is error-prone.

Pebble takes the next step:

  • Readable syntax → close to common programming languages
  • Strong typing → prevents subtle runtime bugs
  • Composable abstractions → through structs, options, pattern matching
  • Direct blockchain access → via on-chain types (Tx, ScriptContext, PubKeyHash, etc.)
  • Modern tooling → integrated CLI, compilation, and test workflows