@provablehq/veil-aleo-devnode

Runs and drives a local Aleo development node from TypeScript. Reach for it in tests, CI, and local development when you need a real node to broadcast against without touching testnet — start one, mine blocks on demand, and tear it down.

The node is seeded with a well-known genesis account (DEVNODE_PRIVATE_KEY) that holds credits, so you have a funded key to pay fees from the moment it boots.

Installation

pnpm add @provablehq/veil-aleo-devnode @provablehq/veil-core

@provablehq/veil-aleo-devnode drives the aleo-devnode binary as a subprocess — it does not bundle a node. The binary MUST be installed and resolvable on PATH (override its location per call with devnodePath). Every function throws with an install-and-PATH hint if it cannot find or run the binary.

Usage

startDevnode spawns the node and resolves once its REST API answers, so the returned instance is ready to receive transactions. Call stop to terminate it (SIGTERM); starting again on the same socket shuts down any node already there first.

import { startDevnode, advanceDevnode, DEVNODE_ADDR } from '@provablehq/veil-aleo-devnode'

const devnode = await startDevnode({
  socketAddr: DEVNODE_ADDR, // '127.0.0.1:3030'
  storagePath: '',          // '' → default ./devnode dir; omit for in-memory
})

// ... broadcast transactions against http://127.0.0.1:3030 ...

await advanceDevnode({ numBlocks: 1 }) // mine a block so a broadcast finalizes

await devnode.stop()

advanceDevnode mines blocks on a running node — pair it with manualBlockCreation on startDevnode when you want deterministic block timing instead of automatic creation. restoreDevnode reloads ledger state from a named snapshot, optionally restarting the node afterward.

Taking a snapshot is a live REST call against the running node, not a binary subcommand, so it lives on the @provablehq/veil-core test client as snapshot (with listSnapshots to enumerate them) rather than in this package. Capture state with client.snapshot(...) and reload it here with restoreDevnode — the node must have been started with storagePath, since an in-memory node has nothing to snapshot.

As test-client actions

devnodeActions folds the process-lifecycle functions onto a @provablehq/veil-core test client via .extend, so a single client drives the node (start/advance/restore) and, through the core test actions, snapshots it.

import { createTestClient, http } from '@provablehq/veil-core'
import { devnodeActions } from '@provablehq/veil-aleo-devnode'

const client = createTestClient({
  transport: http('http://127.0.0.1:3030', { network: 'testnet' }),
}).extend(devnodeActions)

const devnode = await client.startDevnode({ storagePath: '' })
await client.advanceDevnode({ numBlocks: 1 })
const { name } = await client.snapshot({ name: 'before-deploy' }) // core test action
// ...run something you may want to undo...
await client.restoreDevnode({ snapshot: name, restart: true })
await devnode.stop()

Exports

• startDevnode(options?) — spawn a node; resolves to a DevnodeInstance once the REST API is ready.
• advanceDevnode(options?) — mine one or more blocks on a running node.
• restoreDevnode(options) — restore ledger state from a snapshot.
• devnodeActions — .extend decorator that adds the above to a client.
• DEVNODE_PRIVATE_KEY — the seeded, funded genesis account key.
• DEVNODE_ADDR — the default socket address, 127.0.0.1:3030.

See the JSDoc on DevnodeStartOptions, DevnodeAdvanceOptions, and DevnodeRestoreOptions for every flag, its default, and the CLI switch it maps to.