Polkadot SDK's Minimal Template

This is a minimal template for creating a blockchain based on Polkadot SDK.

This template is automatically updated after releases in the main Polkadot SDK monorepo.

Table of Contents

• Intro

• Template Structure

• Getting Started

• Starting a Minimal Template Chain

  • Minimal Template Node
  • Zombienet with Minimal Template Node
  • Connect with the Polkadot-JS Apps Front-End
  • Takeaways

• Contributing

• Getting Help

Intro

• 🤏 This template is a minimal (in terms of complexity and the number of components) template for building a blockchain node.

• 🔧 Its runtime is configured with a single custom pallet as a starting point, and a handful of ready-made pallets such as a Balances pallet.

• 👤 The template has no consensus configured - it is best for experimenting with a single node network.

Template Structure

A Polkadot SDK based project such as this one consists of:

• 🧮 the Runtime - the core logic of the blockchain.
• 🎨 the Pallets - from which the runtime is constructed.
• 💿 a Node - the binary application (which is not part of the cargo default-members list and is not compiled unless building the entire workspace).

Getting Started

• 🦀 The template is using the Rust language.

• 👉 Check the Rust installation instructions for your system.

• 🛠️ Depending on your operating system and Rust version, there might be additional packages required to compile this template - please take note of the Rust compiler output.

Fetch minimal template code.

git clone https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk-minimal-template.git minimal-template

cd minimal-template

Starting a Minimal Template Chain

Minimal Template Node

Build both node & runtime

cargo build --workspace --release

🐳 Alternatively, build the docker image which builds all the workspace members, and has as entry point the node binary:

docker build . -t polkadot-sdk-minimal-template

Start the minimal-template-node

The minimal-template-node has dependency on the minimal-template-runtime. It will use the minimal_template_runtime::WASM_BINARY constant (which holds the WASM blob as a byte array) for chain spec building, while starting.

<target/release/path/to/minimal-template-node> --tmp --consensus manual-seal-3000
# or via docker
docker run --rm polkadot-sdk-minimal-template

Zombienet with minimal-template-node

For this one we just need to have zombienet installed and run:

zombienet --provider native spawn zombienet-multi-node.toml

Connect with the Polkadot-JS Apps Front-End

• 🌐 You can interact with your local node using the hosted version of the Polkadot/Substrate Portal.

• 🪐 A hosted version is also available on IPFS.

• 🧑‍🔧 You can also find the source code and instructions for hosting your own instance in the polkadot-js/apps repository.

Takeaways

Previously minimal template's development chains:

• ❌ Started in a multi-node setup will produce forks because minimal lacks consensus.
• 🧹 Do not persist the state.
• 💰 Are pre-configured with a genesis state that includes several pre-funded development accounts.
• 🧑‍⚖️ One development account (ALICE) is used as sudo accounts.

Contributing

• 🔄 This template is automatically updated after releases in the main Polkadot SDK monorepo.

• ➡️ Any pull requests should be directed to this source.

• 😇 Please refer to the monorepo's contribution guidelines and Code of Conduct.

Getting Help

• 🧑‍🏫 To learn about Polkadot in general, docs.Polkadot.com website is a good starting point.

• 🧑‍🔧 For technical introduction, here are the Polkadot SDK documentation resources.

• 👥 Additionally, there are GitHub issues and Substrate StackExchange.

• 👥You can also reach out on the Official Polkadot discord server

• 🧑Reach out on Telegram for more questions and discussions