Set Up a Local Network

Use the ant-dev workflow to start a local devnet plus antd on your machine.

This is the best place to test uploads before you move to Arbitrum Sepolia or Arbitrum One, because the local environment also provisions a funded wallet for you.

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain

• Python 3.10+

• protoc (Protocol Buffers compiler) available on your machine

• Foundry (provides anvil) — required by ant-devnet for the local EVM testnet. Install with:

  curl -sL https://foundry.paradigm.xyz | bash
  ~/.foundry/bin/foundryup

  The installer adds ~/.foundry/bin to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, or equivalent). Open a new terminal, or run source ~/.bashrc (or source ~/.zshrc), before running ant dev start so anvil is on PATH.

• A local checkout of ant-sdk

• A local checkout of ant-node

Steps

1. Clone the required repos

If you do not already have them locally:

git clone https://github.com/WithAutonomi/ant-sdk.git
git clone https://github.com/WithAutonomi/ant-node.git

2. Install the local dev CLI

From the ant-sdk repo root:

cd ant-sdk
pip install -e ant-dev/

This installs the ant command provided by the ant-dev package.

That ant command is separate from the direct-network CLI. Use a virtualenv, pipx, or a separate PATH setup if you need both workflows on the same machine.

If antd has not been built on this machine before, make sure protoc is installed first. On macOS, one working setup is brew install protobuf.

3. Start the local environment

Point ant dev start at your ant-node checkout:

ant dev start --ant-node-dir ../ant-node

If the two repos are already laid out as siblings and discovery works in your environment, --ant-node-dir can be omitted.

On the first run, this step can take longer than usual because local components may still be compiling in release mode. If the command times out on a cold build, run it again after the initial compilation completes.

The local start flow launches:

• a local ant-devnet

• a generated devnet manifest with bootstrap peers plus local wallet and EVM payment settings

• antd --network local

• a wallet-enabled local environment with REST health on http://localhost:8082/health

That means local testing gives you:

• a network to upload to

• a daemon to talk to

• a wallet you can inspect

• token and gas balances for upload testing

4. Check status and wallet

ant dev status
ant dev wallet show

ant dev status checks the local processes and the daemon health endpoint. ant dev wallet show prints the configured local wallet address, token balance, and gas balance.

This is the easiest way to confirm that your local environment is actually ready for paid upload tests.

5. Verify the daemon responds

curl http://localhost:8082/health

Expected response shape:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "network": "local"
}

6. Store and retrieve a quick test payload

DATA_B64=$(printf 'Local network test' | base64)

curl -X POST http://localhost:8082/v1/data/public \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"data\":\"$DATA_B64\"}"

curl http://localhost:8082/v1/data/public/<address>

7. Stop the local environment

ant dev stop

Verify it worked

The local network is working when ant dev status reports a healthy daemon, ant dev wallet show reports a funded wallet, and a test public upload can be fetched back through the same antd instance.

Common errors

No local environment running: Re-run ant dev start and check that the ant-node path is correct.

Cannot reach http://localhost:8082/health: Use ant dev status and ant dev logs to inspect the daemon.

Wallet not configured: Restart the environment; the local start flow provisions wallet access from the generated devnet manifest.

Next steps

• Start the Local Daemon

• Prepare a Wallet for Uploads

• Store Data on the Network

• Store and Retrieve Data with the SDKs

• Estimate Costs and Handle Upload Payments