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Flow CLI

The Flow Command Line Interface (CLI) is a powerful tool that enables developers to seamlessly interact with the Flow blockchain across various environments, including testnet, mainnet, and local development using the Flow Emulator. Designed for ease of use, the Flow CLI simplifies common blockchain tasks such as managing accounts and contract dependencies, sending transactions, querying chain state, deploying smart contracts, and much more.

With Flow CLI, developers can:

  • Manage Accounts: Create and manage Flow accounts, configure keys, and handle account-related operations.
  • Send Transactions: Build, sign, and submit transactions to the Flow network, allowing for contract interaction and fund transfers.
  • Query Chain State: Retrieve data from the Flow blockchain, including account balances, event logs, and the status of specific transactions.
  • Deploy Smart Contracts: Easily deploy and update Cadence smart contracts on any Flow environment (emulator, testnet, or mainnet).
  • Use the Emulator: Set up a local Flow blockchain instance with the Flow emulator to test and debug smart contracts in a development environment before deploying them on the network.
  • Interact with the Flow Access API: Automate complex workflows using configuration files and command-line scripting, which allows for greater flexibility in continuous integration (CI) or custom development tools.
  • Access Flow’s Tooling Ecosystem: Integrate Flow CLI with other developer tools like the Cadence Extension for VSCode to enhance your development experience.

The Flow CLI is essential for developers looking to build, test, and maintain decentralized applications on the Flow blockchain efficiently, offering a feature-rich, user-friendly interface for both beginners and experienced blockchain developers.

Installation​

Follow these steps to install the Flow CLI on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Create your first project​

The Flow CLI is Flow’s primary development and testing environment, similar to Hardhat and Foundry for developers familiar with writing in Solidity. With the Flow CLI super commands, initiating your new project becomes effortless. Execute the flow setup command and make a selection from a variety of accessible scaffolds.


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> flow setup hello-world --scaffold
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🔨 General Scaffolds
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[1] Empty Cadence Project - Empty project containing only basic folder structure and flow.json configuration.
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[2] Simple Cadence Project - Scaffold contains required folder structure as well as some example Cadence code.
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[3] Cadence NFT Project - Scaffold contains the ExampleNFT sample NFT contract.
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[4] Hybrid Custody Project - Starter for exploring & implementing Hybrid Custody.
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💻 Web Scaffolds
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[5] FCL Web Dapp - Simple TypeScript web application using next.js, FCL, and Cadence.
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📱 Mobile Scaffolds
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[6] Swift iOS simple example - iOS example demonstrating usage of FCL and Flow interactions.
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[7] Android simple example - Android example demonstrating usage of FCL and Flow interactions.
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[8] FCL React Native Mobile Dapp - React Native (Expo) mobile dapp example demonstrating FCL and Flow interactions.
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🏀 Unity Scaffolds
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[9] Simple Unity - Simple example demonstrating how to interact with the Flow network using Unity SDK.
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[10] Mobile Unity Game - Example words game built on Flow using the Unity SDK.

After you have created your new project you can proceed writing contracts and by running dev command the CLI will make sure they are deployed to the Flow emulator for you. Flow emulator is a simplified version of Flow network you can use locally to develop.

So proceed by starting the emulator:


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> flow emulator

After creating your new project you are ready to start writing contracts. The Flow emulator is a simplified local simulation of the Flow network. Running the dev command in the CLI ensures that the contracts are deployed to the Flow emulator for you.

And then the flow dev:


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> flow dev

Next steps​

As part of the next steps you can read more about flow dev command.