How to develop Solidity smart contracts using Hardhat

This tutorial provides a comprehensive guide to creating, testing, and deploying a simple escrow smart contract using Hardhat and Solidity, aimed at newcomers to blockchain technology. It begins by introducing Solidity, the programming language used for Ethereum smart contracts, and Hardhat, a development environment that simplifies the process of writing and testing smart contracts without leaving the JavaScript and Node.js environment. The tutorial walks through the installation of Hardhat, creating a development environment, and writing the smart contract. It further explores the implementation of deposit and withdrawal functions, emphasizing the importance of validating transaction hashes and amounts. Testing is conducted using JavaScript libraries like Chai, focusing on both successful (happy path) and error-prone (unhappy path) scenarios. The guide concludes with detailed instructions for deploying the smart contract on local and test networks, highlighting the use of environment variables for configuration.