validana-cli

A command-line interface client for the Validana blockchain platform

Overview

This package provides a simple CLI for the Validana blockchain platform, based on the validana-client library. For more information about the Validana blockchain platform refer to https://validana.io.

Installation

Install using npm:

sudo npm -g i validana-cli

You can now directly start using validana-cli from your command line.

By default validana-cli tries to connect to an instance of validana-server running on localhost. Use the --url option to connect to a specific server.

Running your own blockchain

The easiest way to run your own Validana blockchain is using Docker: Clone the validana-processor repository in an empty directory, generate two passwords for the database and a private key using the validana-cli key generate command, configure these passwords, the private key and a prefix of your choosing in the docker-compose.yml file included in the repository, and run the blockchain with docker-compose up -d. You can now use the private key you generated to create and delete smart contracts. See the usage examples below for more things you can do.

Usage examples

Show general usage information:

validana-cli

Get help on how a specifc CLI command works:

validana-cli help contract execute

Generate a new keypair and print it:

validana-cli key generate

List available smart contracts:

validana-cli contract list --prefix myblockchain

Create a new smart contract:

validana-cli contract create --prefix myblockchain --contract-file contracts/mycontract.json --signing-keyfile keyfile.json

Execute a smart contract with a given payload:

validana-cli contract execute --prefix myblockchain --contract-type mycontract --payload '{"foo": "bar"}' --signing-key L2onu5qevxBfjB6xGSkxMqzRZLT6nN9ZRWXFz5doognwbcVM2CfB

Wait for a transaction to be processed and get its result:

validana-cli transaction await --prefix myblockchain --id b043790915bc2f9b6bf8ae470f49c32d

Note that all validana-cli commands accept both parameters and files as input and always output their result as JSON. As a result you can combine most commands in various ways using simple redirection in your shell.

For example, to execute a smart contract using a newly generated key, waiting for it to be processed and then printing the block id in which the smart contract was created (using the json CLI tool):

export VALIDANA_PREFIX=myblockchain
validana-cli contract execute --contract-type mycontract --payload-file mypayload.json --signing-key "$(validana-cli key generate)" | validana-cli transaction await --id-file - | json blockId

You may also consider setting up tab-completion in your shell:

validana-cli completion

Issues and contributing

If you have any issues with validana-cli, check the issue tracker of this project and the upstream issue tracker to see whether it was already reported by someone else. If not, go ahead and create a new issue. Try to include as much information (CLI version, commands to reproduce) as possible.

While I personally probably won't have much time to continue developing this project, I do very much welcome contributions! If you have fixed a bug, added a new command or have some other contribution, feel free to open a pull request on GitHub.

License

validana-cli is freely distributable under the terms of the AGPLv3 license.