Why was Acton created?

Developing smart contracts on TON has never been easy. For a long time, developers effectively had to choose between three languages, but last year TON Foundation finally narrowed that choice and recommended Tolk.

Back then, we wrote that once one language officially becomes the “primary option,” it is only logical to expect more documentation, tooling, and attention from TON Core to start forming around it.

Now, this seems to be exactly what is happening. In early May, Acton was released — a unified toolkit for developing smart contracts on TON, built around Tolk.

By the way, against the backdrop of MTONGA, the release may have looked like part of a broader plan to rebuild TON development. But the reality appears to be more straightforward: the first commit to the Acton repository was made more than six months ago. So the release simply happened to coincide with the implementation of MTONGA.

We cannot honestly say how much easier Acton has made smart contract development. There are no developers on The Daily TON editorial team, but at a basic level, the entry barrier does seem lower.

For example, we tried using an AI agent to build a very simple smart contract. It accepts TON, splits the amount in half, sends one half back to the user, and sends the other half to The Daily TON’s wallet.

Of course, this is not serious development, nor does it prove that the toolkit is ready for complex protocols. But the fact itself is interesting: someone with no experience writing smart contracts on TON can now open an AI agent, ask it to study the Acton documentation, and fairly quickly get a working example. Not long ago, that scenario would have sounded impossible.

In an earlier post, we wrote that development on TON was gradually becoming easier. Acton fits neatly into that same trajectory: it does not change the nature of the blockchain itself or remove its specific quirks — such as its asynchronous architecture — but it does take away some of the everyday friction. And that, it seems, is its main purpose.

If there are any developers among our readers, we invite you to share your experience in the comments: has writing smart contracts on TON actually become easier?

We’ll leave an example prompt for an AI agent in the comments.

@thedailyton