Hardhat: how to deploy using a custom signer - deployment

Question

Normally, to deploy contracts to a network, we specify the private keys in accounts section of the network config, Like below, and these accounts get used in signing the transactions.
module.exports = {
defaultNetwork: "rinkeby",
networks: {
hardhat: {
},
rinkeby: {
url: "https://eth-rinkeby.alchemyapi.io/v2/1234",
accounts: [privateKey1, privateKey2, ...]
}
},
But we need to use a custom signer that will sign the transactions instead. All transactions that are part of the deployment process needs to be signed via this custom signer.
How do I do this using Hardhat/ethers.js ?

Answer 1

You have to modify the deployment script to attach your custom signer to the contract factory (https://docs.ethers.io/v4/api-contract.html):
async function main() {
const HelloBar = await ethers.getContractFactory("HelloBar");
const signer = createYourCustomSigner();
// attach the signer to the factory
HelloBar = HelloBar.connect(signer);
const hellobar = await HelloBar.deploy();
await hellobar.deployed();
console.log("Address:", hellobar.address);
}
main()
.then(() => process.exit(0))
.catch((error) => {
console.error(error);
process.exit(1);
});
Then run the script with:
npx hardhat run --network localhost scripts/deploy.js