GitHub - Consensys/gnark: gnark is a fast zk-SNARK library that offers a high-level API to design circuits. The library is open source and developed under the Apache 2.0 license (original) (raw)

High-performance zk-SNARKs in Go.

gnark provides a high-level API to define circuits, then compile, prove, and verify with production-grade proving systems. It is open-source under Apache 2.0 and uses gnark-crypto for field arithmetic and cryptographic primitives.

gnark powers Linea zk-rollup. Include your project in known users by opening a PR.

Why `gnark`

Circuit development in idiomatic Go
Fast proving and verification backends
Reusable standard gadgets in std/
Active security and regression testing culture

Useful Links

gnark User Documentation
gnark Playground
gnark Issues
gnark Benchmarks 🏁
gnark-announce - release and security announcements

Quick Start

Requirements

Go 1.25+ (module target: go 1.25.6)

Install

go get github.com/consensys/gnark@latest

Run an example

To design your first circuit, follow the tutorial in gnark User Documentation.

Supported Proving Systems and Curves

gnark currently supports:

Groth16
PLONK

on the following curves:

BN254
BLS12-381
BLS12-377
BW6-761

Notes:

Solidity verifier export support is curve-dependent (BN254 is the primary target).
Serialized formats are not guaranteed to be stable across versions.

GPU Acceleration (Experimental)

gnark includes experimental GPU acceleration through Ingonyama's ICICLE backend for Groth16 on:

BN254
BLS12-377
BLS12-381
BW6-761

See accelerated backend documentation and the ICICLE repository.

Example Circuit

The circuit below encodes x**3 + x + 5 == y.

package main

import ( "github.com/consensys/gnark-crypto/ecc" "github.com/consensys/gnark/backend/groth16" "github.com/consensys/gnark/frontend" "github.com/consensys/gnark/frontend/cs/r1cs" )

// CubicCircuit defines a simple circuit. // x**3 + x + 5 == y type CubicCircuit struct { X frontend.Variable gnark:"x" Y frontend.Variable gnark:",public" }

// Define declares the circuit constraints. func (circuit *CubicCircuit) Define(api frontend.API) error { x3 := api.Mul(circuit.X, circuit.X, circuit.X) api.AssertIsEqual(circuit.Y, api.Add(x3, circuit.X, 5)) return nil }

func main() { var circuit CubicCircuit ccs, _ := frontend.Compile(ecc.BN254.ScalarField(), r1cs.NewBuilder, &circuit)

pk, vk, _ := groth16.Setup(ccs)

assignment := CubicCircuit{X: 3, Y: 35}
witness, _ := frontend.NewWitness(&assignment, ecc.BN254.ScalarField())
publicWitness, _ := witness.Public()

proof, _ := groth16.Prove(ccs, pk, witness)
_ = groth16.Verify(proof, vk, publicWitness)

}

Security

gnark and gnark-crypto have been extensively audited, but are provided as-is with no guarantees or warranties. In particular, gnark does not guarantee constant-time implementations or side-channel resistance.

Report vulnerabilities via Security Policy. Do not open public issues for security reports.

Published advisories are listed here.

Testing

CI runs formatting, generated-file, lint, and test checks on pull requests and pushes.

Common local commands:

go test -short ./... go test -tags=release_checks,solccheck . go test -tags=prover_checks ./test/... ./examples/... go test -run=NONE -fuzz=FuzzIntcomp -fuzztime=30s ./internal/backend/ioutils go generate ./...

Audits

Release Notes

See CHANGELOG.md.

Citing

If you use gnark in research, please cite the latest release:

@software{gnark-v0.14.0, author = {Gautam Botrel and Thomas Piellard and Youssef El Housni and Ivo Kubjas and Arya Tabaie}, title = {Consensys/gnark: v0.14.0}, month = jun, year = 2025, publisher = {Zenodo}, version = {v0.14.0}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.5819104}, url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5819104} }

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

Versioning

gnark follows SemVer. Available versions are in tags.

License

Licensed under Apache 2.0 (see LICENSE).