B · Launching Effectstream + Local Dev · PRE-WORK

Install everything

~15 minutes of installs plus downloads. Do this before the live session. Each step ends with a verify command — run it and compare with the expected output.

Install: Bun · Node 22+ · Foundry · Compact 0.30 · MetaMask
Clone the template, bun install (~30 s)
Every install ends with a verify command
Needs ≥4 GB free RAM; first launch downloads Midnight binaries

▼ details below

Two things that bite people

≥ 4 GB free RAM — the frontend build needs ~3 GB of Node heap.
First launch downloads Midnight node binaries from GitHub (hundreds of MB). Be on decent Wi-Fi.

Minor: the node syncs time over NTP. On normal home/personal internet this just works; only strict corporate VPNs block it (see troubleshooting if nothing ever syncs).

1Bun (runtime for everything)

curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Note: untested — unofficial support only. The workshop is developed and verified on macOS and Linux; WSL2 should work but you're in lightly-charted territory.

Install WSL2 with an Ubuntu distro first, then inside WSL:

curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Do everything in this workshop inside WSL, including the browser pointing at localhost.

verify

$ bun --version
1.3.x

2Node.js 22+ (used by build tools)

node --version   # if this prints v22 or higher, skip ahead

Otherwise install from nodejs.org or your package manager.

3Foundry (forge — compiles the EVM contracts)

curl -L https://foundry.paradigm.xyz | bash
foundryup

verify

$ forge --version
forge Version: 1.x

The orchestrator hard-checks that forge is on your PATH at startup and refuses to boot without it.

4Compact compiler (compiles the Midnight contract)

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/midnightntwrk/compact/releases/latest/download/compact-installer.sh | sh
compact update 0.30.0

verify

$ compact compile --version
Compactc version: 0.30.0

Also hard-checked at startup, even though the compiled contract output ships with the template.

5MetaMask

Install the MetaMask browser extension (any browser). We'll add the local network and a funded dev account in Step 3.

6The template

git clone https://github.com/effectstream/effectstream.git
cd effectstream/templates/evm-midnight-v2
bun install

verify (~30 s, ~1.8 GB of node_modules)

$ bun install
+ 1000s of packages, no errors

Checkpoint — you're ready for first launch

bun --version, forge --version, and compact compile --version all print versions, and bun install finished cleanly inside templates/evm-midnight-v2. Continue to First launch — do it now, it downloads the chain binaries.

← The game rules First launch →