getting-started.md

Getting Started

Follow the steps below to get started with Madara 🛠️

Rust Setup

First, Install rust using the rustup toolchain installer, then run:

rustup show

Single-Node Development Chain

Use Rust's native cargo command to build and launch the template node:

You first need to setup up the node, which means you need to load the genesis state into your file system.

cargo run --release -- setup --chain=dev --from-remote

Now, you can start the node in development mode

cargo run --release -- --dev

Interacting with the node

Madara is compatible with the Starknet spec which means all tooling around Starknet (starknet-js, starknet-rs, wallets, etc.) can be used out of the box by just changing the RPC url to point to your node. By default, this would be http://localhost:9944.

Common chain flags

You can check all the available using the --help flag. Some common points to know about have been mentioned below.

Madara overrides the default dev flag in substrate to meet its requirements. The following flags are automatically enabled with the --dev argument:

--chain=dev, --force-authoring, --alice, --tmp, --rpc-external, --rpc-methods=unsafe

The --tmp flag stores the chain database in a temporary folder. You can specify a custom folder to store the chain state by using the --base-path flag. You cannot combine the base-path command with --dev as --dev enforces --tmp which will store the db at a temporary folder. You can, however, manually specify all flags that the dev flag adds automatically. Keep in mind, the path must be the same as the one you used in the setup command.

The node also supports to use manual seal (to produce block manually through RPC).

cargo run --release -- --dev --sealing=manual
# Or
cargo run --release -- --dev --sealing=instant

Log level can be specified with -l flag. For example, -ldebug will show debug logs. It can also be specified via the RUST_LOG environment variable. For example:

RUSTLOG=runtime=info cargo run --release -- --dev

Using Nix (optional, only for degens)

Install nix and optionally direnv and lorri for a fully plug and play experience for setting up the development environment. To get all the correct dependencies activate direnv direnv allow and lorri lorri shell.

Embedded Docs

Once the project has been built, the following command can be used to explore all parameters and subcommands:

./target/release/madara -h

Connect with Polkadot-JS Apps Front-end

Once the node template is running locally, you can connect it with Polkadot-JS Apps front-end to interact with your chain. Click here connecting the Apps to your local node template.

Multi-Node Local Testnet

Build custom chain spec:

# Build plain chain spec
cargo run --release -- build-spec --chain local > chain-specs/madara-local-testnet-plain.json
# Build final raw chain spec
cargo run --release -- build-spec --chain chain-specs/madara-local-testnet-plain.json --raw > chain-specs/madara-local-testnet.json

See more details about custom chain specs.

Testing Madara RPC Endpoints

To test the Madara RPC endpoints, follow the steps below:

Run Madara locally (by default, it runs on port 9944):

cargo run --release -- --dev
# Alternatively, use other methods to run Madara

Execute hurl tests sequentially:

hurl --variables-file examples/rpc/hurl.config  --test examples/rpc/**/*.hurl

The output should be similar to the image provided:

Set Ethereum Node URL for offchain worker

In order for the offchain worker to access an Ethereum RPC node, we need to set the URL for that in offchain local storage. We can do that by making use of the default offchain rpc calls provided by Substrate.

In the polkadot explorer, navigate to Developer > RPC calls and choose the offchain endpoint. In there, you can set the value for ETHEREUM_EXECUTION_RPC by using the localStorageSet function. You need to select the type of storage, in this case PERSISTENT, and use the starknet::ETHEREUM_EXECUTION_RPC as the key. The value is the RPC URL you intend to use.

You can check that the value was properly set by using the localStorageGet function

Run in Docker

First, install Docker and Docker Compose.

Then run the following command to start a single node development chain.

docker run --rm [TAG] --dev

This command will firstly compile your code, and then start a local development network. The TAGS are available here.

You can also use the command appending your own options. A few useful ones are as follow.

# Run Substrate node without re-compiling
docker run --rm [TAG] --dev --ws-external

# Purge the local dev chain
docker run --rm [TAG] purge-chain --dev