Developer Environment

To develop Dogecoin applications to be deployed on ICP, your local developer environment will need to include:

• icp-cli, the command-line tool used to create, deploy, and manage canisters and to run a local development network. Install it with:

  npm install -g @icp-sdk/icp-cli @icp-sdk/ic-wasm
  

• The Rust toolchain with the wasm32-unknown-unknown target for compiling canisters:

  rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown
  

• A local Dogecoin regtest node (dogecoind). You can either let icp-cli run one for you inside a Docker container (recommended, see below) or run your own.

brew install llvm
export PATH="$(brew --prefix llvm)/bin:$PATH"

Running a local Dogecoin regtest network

It is recommended to set up a local Dogecoin regtest network to mine blocks quickly and at will, which facilitates testing various cases without having to rely on the Dogecoin mainnet where blocks are produced every minute on average.

icp-cli runs the ICP Dogecoin integration (a local instance of the Dogecoin API, deployed as a canister for your application to interact with) as part of its managed local network. There are two ways to provide the underlying dogecoind regtest node.

Option 1: Docker image that bundles dogecoind (recommended)

This is the approach used by the basic_dogecoin example. A custom network-launcher Docker image bundles dogecoind together with the network launcher, so a single icp network start command brings up both the local IC network and a regtest Dogecoin node — you do not need to install or run dogecoind yourself. This is especially convenient on macOS, where there are no official dogecoind binaries.

The example wires this up in icp.yaml by pointing its local network at the custom image:

networks:
  - name: local
    mode: managed
    image: icp-cli-network-launcher-dogecoin

See Deploy your first app locally for the full workflow (building the image, starting the network, and deploying).

Option 2: Run your own dogecoind and point icp-cli at it

If you prefer to manage the node yourself, run a local dogecoind regtest network and connect icp-cli's default (non-Docker) network launcher to it with the dogecoind-addr field:

networks:
  - name: local
    mode: managed
    dogecoind-addr:
      - "127.0.0.1:18444"

dogecoind-addr takes the node's P2P address (not its RPC endpoint). For the full set of options, see the icp-cli configuration reference.

The steps below set up such a node.

• Step 1: Download Dogecoin Core.

Example for a Linux machine:

# Download the binary
curl -L -O https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/releases/download/v1.14.9/dogecoin-1.14.9-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

# Unpack
tar -xvf dogecoin-1.14.9-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz

# Add binaries to the PATH environment variable
export PATH="$(pwd)/dogecoin-1.14.9/bin:$PATH"

• Step 2: Create a subdirectory for Dogecoin data.

This should be created in the project folder root. This allows you to run different local Dogecoin regtest networks for different projects.

mkdir dogecoin_data

• Step 3: Create a file called dogecoin.conf.

cat > dogecoin_data/dogecoin.conf <<EOF
regtest=1
txindex=1
rpcuser=ic-doge-integration
rpcpassword=QPQiNaph19FqUsCrBRN0FII7lyM26B51fAMeBQzCb-E=
rpcauth=ic-doge-integration:cdf2741387f3a12438f69092f0fdad8e\$62081498c98bee09a0dce2b30671123fa561932992ce377585e8e08bb0c11dfa
EOF

Explanation of settings:

• regtest=1: Enables Dogecoin’s regression test mode for local testing.

• txindex=1: Maintains a full transaction index to support lookups by transaction ID.

• rpcuser=ic-doge-integration: Sets a default username for JSON-RPC authentication.

• rpcpassword=QPQ…b-E=: Sets the password for JSON-RPC authentication.

• rpcauth=ic-doge-integration:cdf…dfa: Uses an alternative authentication method for RPC, combining the username and a salted hash.

Find more details about the dogecoin.conf settings in the Dogecoin Core Daemon documentation.

• Step 4: Run dogecoind to start the Dogecoin client.

dogecoind -datadir=$(pwd)/dogecoin_data -printtoconsole --port=18444

This command assumes that port 18444 on your machine is available. If it isn't, change the specified port accordingly (and update dogecoind-addr to match).