> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.cartesi.io/llms.txt)

---
title: Cartesi Compute SDK Environment
tags: [sdk, tutorials, low-level developer]
---

:::note Section Goal

- describe easy-to-use environment available for developing Cartesi Compute dApps
- download and run the environment
  :::

## Overview

As described in detail in the [Cartesi Compute SDK section](/compute/overview/), a Cartesi Compute dApp requires that a certain set of components and resources be available in order to effectively run. There are numerous alternative [topologies](/compute/topologies/) in which this architecture can be deployed depending on the users' interests and resources. Moreover, the dApp can also choose from a range of [supported blockchain networks](/compute/supported-networks/) on which the Cartesi Compute smart contracts are deployed and available.

However, for the purposes of these tutorials (and general rapid Cartesi Compute dApp prototyping), the Cartesi team has provided a ready-to-use _Cartesi Compute SDK Environment_ with all the on-chain and off-chain components necessary to build a Cartesi Compute dApp out-of-the-box. This environment is configured for a scenario with two actors, denominated `alice` and `bob`, who will respectively perform the roles of _claimer_ and _challenger_ for all Cartesi Compute computations.

## Components

The Cartesi Compute SDK Environment basically consists of a _Docker Compose_ specification that spins up services corresponding to the components described below.

### Local Compute-enabled blockchain

The environment starts up a local blockchain network using [Hardhat](https://hardhat.org/), which is accessible on port `8545`. This network instance comes pre-installed with a number of user accounts, the first two of which we will use for `alice` and `bob`, with addresses respectively at `0xf39Fd6e51aad88F6F4ce6aB8827279cffFb92266` and `0x70997970C51812dc3A010C7d01b50e0d17dc79C8`.

Moreover, the network is instantiated with all the Cartesi Compute smart contracts already deployed. As such, these smart contracts are readily available for our tutorial dApps to use.

### Cartesi Compute nodes

For each of the two actors, `alice` and `bob`, the environment provides a corresponding off-chain _Cartesi Compute node_, which is responsible for carrying out computations on their behalf. In practice, each node is composed of a number of internal services, but dApp developers can safely abstract away these details completely.

## Download and run

The Cartesi Compute SDK Environment is available on the [Compute Tutorials GitHub repo](https://github.com/cartesi/compute-tutorials/).

You can download and extract a ready-to-use artifact by executing:

```bash
wget https://github.com/cartesi/compute-tutorials/releases/download/v1.3.0/compute-env-1.3.0.tar.gz
tar -xzvf compute-env-1.3.0.tar.gz
```

Then, start it up by running:

```bash
cd compute-env
docker-compose up
```

This will print the logs of all services in your current terminal. As such, you will normally need to open up a separate terminal in order to follow the next sections of this tutorial.

Alternatively, you may run the above `docker-compose` command in detached mode by adding the `-d` switch. In this case, it can be useful to list the currently instantiated services by executing the `docker ps` command, and then check the output printed by each service by running `docker logs <service>`. Please refer to the [Docker documentation](https://docs.docker.com/) for a complete overview on how to use Docker and Docker Compose.