Reading a Verified Contract You Didn't Write: A Systematic Approach

Short summary

To audit a large Solidity contract efficiently, read in order of risk, not appearance: identify where assets move (transfer functions), who can trigger those (access control gates), what state they alter, external calls (reentrancy risk), and arithmetic edge cases. Use AI to accelerate each step by providing structured prompts rather than asking it to find bugs wholesale. This methodology reduces a 600-line contract to 30 lines of actual risk.

• •Prioritize by risk: assets first, access control second, state third, external calls fourth, arithmetic last
• •Use AI to fill in details within each step, not to replace structured thinking
• •This reduces a 600-line contract audit to 30 lines of actual risk analysis

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.