Development Environment

The recommended setup is the sibling-workspace model used by the maintained repos, smoke tests, and localnet flows.

Recommended Workspace

~/xian/
  xian-cli/
  xian-stack/
  xian-abci/
  xian-configs/
  xian-contracting/
  xian-py/

Useful optional siblings depending on your work:

• xian-linter for standalone lint-service work
• xian-js for browser and TypeScript integrations
• xian-wallet-browser and xian-wallet-mobile for wallet development
• xian-contracts for maintained contract packages
• xian-playground-web, xian-contracting-hub-web, and xian-mcp-server for higher-level tooling

Tooling Baseline

Tool	Recommended version / note
Python	3.14+ for the core repos
uv	preferred Python environment and command runner
Docker	required for xian-stack, localnet, and most node workflows
Git	needed for the sibling workspace

The Python repos in the maintained workspace use Python 3.14.

Bootstrap

Start with the operator-facing repo, then validate the runtime stack:

cd ~/xian/xian-cli
uv sync --group dev

cd ../xian-stack
make validate

If you are working directly on the contract runtime or ABCI layer, also install their dev environments:

cd ~/xian/xian-contracting
uv sync --group dev

cd ../xian-abci
uv sync --group dev

Common Validation Loops

Use focused checks while you iterate.

cd ~/xian/xian-contracting
uv run pytest tests/unit/test_linter.py tests/unit/test_lmdb_store.py tests/unit/test_tracer.py

cd ../xian-abci
uv run pytest tests/abci_methods/test_query.py tests/abci_methods/test_finalize_block.py

cd ../xian-stack
make smoke-cli

Local Multi-Node Testing

Use xian-stack when you need a realistic local validator environment:

cd ~/xian/xian-stack
python3 ./scripts/backend.py localnet-init --nodes 4 --topology integrated --clean
python3 ./scripts/backend.py localnet-up --wait-for-health
python3 ./scripts/backend.py localnet-status

For deeper whole-stack validation, use the maintained harnesses in xian-stack, including the broader localnet e2e flows and the VM-oriented localnet runs.

Contract-Only Setup

If you only want to write and test contracts and do not need the full workspace, a smaller setup is enough:

uv add xian-tech-contracting

Then start with Your First Smart Contract.