Informing polkadot/api about additional signed extensions

Question

Polkadot/api has a way to detail signed extensions and I want to understand (so I can use it for our own custom signed extension) what the extrinsic and payload parameters map to.

Here's an example using some of the built in signed extensions (From: substrate.ts)

const api = await ApiPromise.create({
  signedExtensions: {
    CheckMortality: {
      extrinsic: {
        era: 'ExtrinsicEra'
      },
      payload: {
        blockHash: 'Hash'
      }
    },
    CheckNonce: {
      extrinsic: {
        nonce: 'Compact<Index>'
      },
      payload: {}
    }
});

These should both map to parts of the transaction format: https://docs.substrate.io/reference/transaction-format/#signed-extensions

My semi-wrong understanding currently:

• Wrong: extrinsic: Maps to the Pre section of the Signed Extension
• Right?: payload: Maps to the AdditionalSigned section of the Signed Extension

This doesn't quite work as check_nonce.rs has Pre = ();

So how do I know that CheckNonce needs extrinsic: { nonce } for Polkadotjs or that CheckMortality needs extrinsic: { era }?

Nothing really appears to map to the Pre section of a signed extension, so also not sure how to tell polkadot/api about additional information there.

Answer 1

extrinsic maps to the struct where the trait SignExtension is implemented. You can see it clearly comparing ChargeAssetTxPayment and its definition here

You are right about payload mapping to AdditionalSigned