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Developing on Tezos

Developing dApps on Tezos is not very different from developing other types of computer applications: you set up a development environment, develop the components of the application locally, test them locally, and then test them on a test network before deploying them to production.

Development tools​

Wallets​

Wallets maintain a user's credentials and signs transactions on their behalf. In most cases, Tezos developers need a wallet to submit transactions to their dApps. See Installing and funding a wallet.

The Octez client​

The Octez client lets you work with accounts and smart contracts from the command line. For more information, see The Octez client.

IDEs and extensions​

You can work with Tezos from any IDE, but these IDEs have special features for working with Tezos:

VSCode​

VSCode provides extensions for working with Tezos including these:

VSCode also has extensions for the LIGO language, primarily these extensions offered by ligolang.org:

Online IDEs​

These online IDEs let you write, test, and deploy smart contracts from your web browser:

Development platforms​

Taqueria is a development platform for Tezos that helps you work on smart contracts and dApps at the same time and keep them in sync as you work through your development cycle. See https://taqueria.io/.

Test environments​

To test smart contracts and dApps, you can use these test environments:

  • Test networks behave like Tezos Mainnet but have differences that make it easier to test on them, such as faucets that provide free tokens and reduced block times for faster testing.
  • Sandbox environments like Flextesa run Tezos nodes locally on your computer in a sandbox mode.
  • You can also set up your own private test network.

For more information about test environments, see Testing on testnets and Using a local sandbox.

LIGO and SmartPy also have built-in testing capabilities.

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