General: Import account via Mnemonic

Overview

Right now you an import a private key, but you should have the option to import both by mnemonic and private key (and also display both when generating)

This applies to the ape-account plugin.

Specification

Brownie does this currently. Also see here

Dependencies

No dependencies

[fubuloubu]

So, this was put on a blanket disclosure. I actually don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

Here’s why:

• the mnemonic to master seed algorithm implements a checksum, and the UX is very safe. if there was a bug with the algorithm, it would generate the wrong master seed and the user wouldn’t get the right private key in hd path
• the master seed hierarchical derivation algorithm could have a bug in it, but if it did it would generate the wrong private key which would not have the address the user would seek
• once it’s in a private key format, the rest of the eth-account implementation is audited that deals with signing. mnemonic is not a signing method
• the implementation has been fuzzed against ethers.js

Honestly, could probably petition to remove the disclosure in eth-account, at the time I implemented it this was done as a cautionary measure, it’s been over 2 years without any issues, and people have used that implementation in Brownie since I did, so I think that combination of factors at least makes it safe to use in ape

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Edit: these two methods are the only ones I could think of that could potentially be problematic:

https://github.com/ethereum/eth-account/blob/cc2feca919474203b0b23450ce7f2deed3ce985c/eth_account/hdaccount/mnemonic.py#L122-L155

[fubuloubu]

So will it be that the single prompt accepts either private key or mnemonic?

Yeah, probably a mutually exclusive option to import via private key (flag only, does not accept input this way only through secret input) or input via combo of mnemonic (also secret input only) and hdpath (which can be parameter, with sensible default), all to produce a singular account