Localnet is ZetaChain’s all‑in‑one local development environment for building, testing, and debugging universal applications. It bootstraps a fully‑featured multi‑chain laboratory on your machine—spinning up nodes for multiple chains (EVM, Solana, Sui, TON) and pre‑deploys the core ZetaChain protocol contracts, ZRC‑20 tokens, and Uniswap v2 & v3 pools. Think of Localnet as ‘ZetaChain on localhost’ — fast, predictable, and ideal for rapid iteration.

Why use Localnet?

🔄 Iterate on cross‑chain logic in seconds — no more waiting for public testnets.

🧪 Reproduce complex multi‑chain flows with one command.

🐞 Step‑through debug every contract call at the EVM level.

🚀 Deploy to testnet/mainnet with confidence once flows are green locally.

✨ Features

• One‑shot bootstrap – npx zetachain@latest localnet start spins up everything.
• Multi‑chain simulation – EVM, Solana, Sui, and TON.
• Pre‑deployed contracts
  • ZetaChain Gateway contracts on all supported chains.
  • ZRC‑20 tokens (ETH, USDC, ...)
  • Uniswap v2 + v3 factories, routers, and initial liquidity pools.
• Configurable – Pass arbitrary flags (block time, fork URL, ...).

🚀 Quick Start

Install prerequisites:

Fire up Localnet:

npx zetachain@latest localnet start

Within seconds you should see output similar to:

ZETACHAIN
┌──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ (index)                  │ Values                                       │
├──────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ gatewayZEVM              │ '0x2279B7A0a67DB372996a5FaB50D91eAA73d2eBe6' │
│ uniswapFactoryInstance   │ '0x9fE46736679d2D9a65F0992F2272dE9f3c7fa6e0' │
│ uniswapRouterInstance    │ '0xCf7Ed3AccA5a467e9e704C703E8D87F634fB0Fc9' │
│ ...                      │                                              │
└──────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

🧩 Deep Dive

What happens under the hood?

1. Anvil node starts on default port.
2. Protocol deploy script publishes all core contracts.
3. Chain simulators for Solana/Sui/TON register with the Connector.
4. Tokens & pools are minted and seeded with liquidity.
5. Funded dev accounts are printed for convenience.

🧪 Useful Examples

Pass custom anvil flags:

npx zetachain@latest localnet start \
  --anvil "--block-time 1 --gas-limit 120000000" \
  --port 9000

Use this to simulate faster block times or test high-throughput contracts by increasing the gas limit and adjusting chain behavior.

Run a lean EVM-only instance of Localnet:

npx zetachain@latest localnet start --skip sui solana ton

Use this when your app doesn't need Solana, Sui, or TON—startup is faster and resource usage is lower.

🛠️ Open Source

Localnet is open-source and available on GitHub (opens in a new tab). Clone or contribute to explore how it works under the hood, customize behaviors, or extend it for your development needs.