What's the difference b/w ChainType::Development vs Local?

Question

pub enum ChainType {
    /// A development chain that runs mainly on one node.
    Development,
    /// A local chain that runs locally on multiple nodes for testing purposes.
    Local,
    /// A live chain.
    Live,
    /// Some custom chain type.
    Custom(String),
}

The question arises from seeing two separate functions in the node template, development_config() -> ChainSpec and local_config() -> ChainSpec, where the only difference I could spot was the difference in ChainType of the aforementioned ChainSpec. Reading the code docs I get that a Local is suited for multiple peers, but is there any code that I can look at that specifically makes use of this distinction, i.e. ChainType::Development vs ChainType::Local?

Answer 1

I can't answer your question perfectly.

It's a marker/property, which means it's hard to find out all usage of it. We don't how many apps use this marker/property.

For example, if your chain type is development, polkadot.js/talisman wallet won't pop up the update the metadata window while connecting to a node. This is pretty tricky. I spent a lot of time debugging this last month. The app told me that I need to update the metadata. But I can't update it from the UI. That part was disabled.