Installation

The primary requirements for building on Cartesi are:

• Cartesi CLI: An easy-to-use tool for developing and deploying your dApps.

• Docker Desktop 4.x: The required tool to distribute the Cartesi Rollups framework and its dependencies.

• Node and NPM: A JavaScript runtime needed to install Cartesi CLI and run various scripts. We recommend installing the LTS version to ensure best compatibility.

• WSL2 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (for Windows users only).

  building on windows?

  Avoid running commands in Powershell. Instead, use the latest installed Ubuntu distro for all coding and command execution.

Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop is a must-have requirement that comes pre-configured with two necessary plugins for building dApps Cartesi:

• Docker Buildx
• Docker Compose

Install the latest version of Docker Desktop for your operating system.

To install Docker RISC-V support without using Docker Desktop, run the following command:

docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install all

Node and NPM

To download the latest version of Node and NPM, visit nodejs.org/en/download.

After downloading, run the installer and follow the instructions to complete the installation.

Verify the installation by running node -v, which will display the version of Node.js that was installed.

Cartesi CLI

macOS

Install Cartesi CLI with Homebrew:

brew install cartesi/tap/cartesi

Alternatively, you can install Cartesi CLI with NPM:

npm install -g @cartesi/cli

Linux

Install Cartesi CLI with NPM:

npm install -g @cartesi/cli

Windows

1. Install WSL2 and Ubuntu from the Microsoft store

2. Install Cartesi CLI with NPM:

npm install -g @cartesi/cli

Cartesi CLI doctor is a diagnostic tool that declares whether your system is ready and set up for development.

$ cartesi doctor
✔ Your system is ready for cartesi.