This is an opinionated boilerplate to get up and running with dApp development in the Substrate ecosystem, especially with ink! smart contracts. It uses custom-built useInkathon React Hooks that abstract & improve the polkadot.js experience.

By Dennis Zoma 💫 & Scio Labs 🪐

Table of Contents:

1. Disclaimer 🚨
2. The Stack
3. Projects using it
4. Getting Started
   1. Frontend
   2. Contracts
5. Development
   1. Frontend Quickstart
   2. Contracts Quickstart
   3. VSCode Setup
6. Customization
7. Deployment
8. FAQs & Troubleshooting

This repository is still work-in-progress and there are probably bugs. See the open issues.

• Package-Manager: pnpm
• Smart Contract Development: ink!, cargo
• Frontend: next
  • Contract Interactions: polkadot-js, useInkathon React Hooks
  • Styling: chakra, tailwindcss, twin.macro, emotion
• Misc:
  • Linting & Formatting: eslint, prettier, husky, lint-staged

Below you find a few projects that use this boilerplate, a variation of it, or have a similar setup that inspired it:

• AZERO Domains – Domain Name Service for Aleph Zero

# 1. Install pnpm (https://pnpm.io/installation)
npm i -g pnpm

# 2. Install dependencies
pnpm install

# 3. Copy & fill environments
# NOTE: Documentation of environment variables can be found in the according `.example` file
# NOTE: Start with only the alephzero-testnet
cp packages/frontend/.env.local.example packages/frontend/.env.local

# 1. Install Rust: https://docs.substrate.io/install/
# NOTE: Leave out the "Compile a Substrate node" part for now
rustup component add rust-src
rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown

# 2. Install ink! tooling (https://use.ink/getting-started/setup#ink-cli)
cargo install cargo-contract --force --locked --git https://github.com/paritytech/cargo-contract.git
cargo install cargo-dylint dylint-link --force --locked

# 3. Install local substrate-contracts-node (https://github.com/paritytech/substrate-contracts-node)
cargo install contracts-node --force --git https://github.com/paritytech/substrate-contracts-node.git

# NOTE: Can be executed in both, the root-dir or in `packages/frontend/`

# Start Frontend (Next.js)
pnpm dev

I created shorthand npm-scripts for most interactions (e.g. build, or starting a local node). Therefore, to execute those the active terminal directory needs to be packages/contracts. The full commands can be found in packages/contracts/package.json.

# Start local node with persistence & open contracts-ui
# NOTE: When using Brave, shields have to be taken down for the UIs
# NOTE: Just use `pnpm node` to not automatically open contracts-ui
pnpm dev

# Build Contracts
pnpm build

# Deploy Contracts with the generated `*.contract` file
# via drag'n'drop in contracts-ui in the browser

# Copy the deployed contracts address and save it via the following command
ADDRESS=… pnpm write-address

# NOTE: This command can also be adapted for different contracts and chains
ADDRESS=123 CHAIN=alephzero-testnet CONTRACT=new_greeter pnpm write-address

# Test Contracts
pnpm test

I strongly recommend developing in VSCode by opening the workspace file located at .vscode/inkathon.code-workspace instead of just the directory. This has multiple advantages and assures a more predictable monorepo configuration. The first plugin listed below will help with getting used to it.

I strongly recommend installing all plugins listed inside .vscode/extensions.json. They should be suggested automatically by VSCode.

The file packages/frontend/.vscode/frontend.code-snippets contains useful snippets for quickly creating components & pages with Next.js, React, Typescript, and twin.macro. Example: Enter "Function Component with Props" in an empty .tsx file to get a FC component boilerplate with an empty TypeScript interface declaration and already imported 'twin.macro'. Check out the snippet-file itself to get a full overview.

There are multiple places where you need to insert your actual project name & identifier. I highlighted most of these occurrences with a /* TODO */ comment in the code. When installing the todo-tree plugin listed above you can easily replace them one by one.

Additionally, there are the following un-highlighted occurrences:

• The name of the .vscode/*.code-workspace file
• The package names within package.json, packages/frontend/package.json, and packages/contracts/package.json
• The workspace dependency defined in packages/frontend/package.json

Setting up a deployment via Vercel is pretty straightforward as build settings are preconfigured in vercel.json. To get started, press the Deploy button and enter the default environment variables listed below.

You can find more documentation on those environment variables in packages/frontend/.env.local.example and all available blockchain network identifiers in the useInkathon repository.