Hooks and the XRP Ledger

Hooks were first designed for the XRP Ledger. In 2020, Wietse Wind of XRPL Labs described them as a planned XRPL amendment. Hooks later ran on a public test network.

Validators can only vote on an amendment that their server software supports. Hooks code never shipped in an XRP Ledger server release. So the XRPL has no Hooks amendment to vote on.

Hooks went live on Xahau instead, from its first ledgers in October 2023.

Some articles still describe Hooks as a pending XRPL feature. That is not the case. No xrpld release includes Hooks, and the XRPL amendment list has no Hooks entry.

The XRPL is exploring programmability of its own. Two drafts stand out: Smart Escrows (XLS-100) and Smart Contracts (XLS-101). Neither is enabled, and neither is open for voting. The Smart Contracts draft names Xahau's Hooks as one of its inspirations.

A Hook written for Xahau does not run on the XRPL.

How to check.

• On any XRPL server, the feature method lists every amendment the server knows. None is named Hooks.
• In features.macro for xrpld 3.4.1, the latest release on 2026-11-10, there is no Hooks entry.
• The xrpl.org Known Amendments page lists no Hooks amendment. It lists SmartEscrow as In Development.
• On Xahau, feature with "feature": "Hooks" returns "enabled": true.

Why there was nothing to vote on. A validator votes only for amendments its build marks as supported. Code that is not in the build cannot be supported. Without a release carrying Hooks, no validator running released software could vote for it.

Two designs compared.

The Smart Contracts draft. XLS-101 was created on 2025-07-28 and is a Draft. A contract would live on a pseudo-account and be called with a ContractCall transaction. The draft says it draws on Xahau's Hooks and the EVM.

See Smart Escrows for the status of the XRPL's first programmability proposal.