Create Embark DApp

The easiest way to create Ethereum DApps thanks to Embark.

• Getting Started — How to create a DApp
• Starting from Templates — How to create a DApp from an Embark template

If you run into any issues or have feedback, please file an issue.

Overview

npm install -g create-embark-dapp

create-embark-dapp my-dapp
cd my-dapp/
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:8000 to view your running DApp.

Start Coding Now

You don't have to install anything else — you can just start coding.

After running create-embark-dapp, you're good to go!

Getting Started

Installation

Install it once globally:

npm install -g create-embark-dapp

You’ll need to have Node >= 8.11.3 LTS on your machine. You can use nvm to easily switch Node versions between different projects.

Creating a DApp

To create a new DApp, run:

create-embark-dapp my-dapp
cd my-dapp

It will create a directory called my-dapp inside the current folder.
Inside that directory, it will generate the initial project structure and install necessary dependencies:

my-dapp
  app/
    css/
    images/
    index.html
    js/
      index.js
  chains.json
  config/
    blockchain.js
    communication.js
    contracts.js
    development/
      genesis.json
      password
    namesystem.js
    storage.js
    testnet/
      password
    webserver.js
  contracts/
  embark.json
  package.json
  test/
    contract_spec.js

Out of the box, we get: ❤️

• automatic contract re/builds and re/deployments
• simple blockchain and contract management
• easy access to decentralized storage and communication
• integration with any web technologies and build pipelines your prefer

--demo

To create a demo Embark project with examples for working with contracts, IPFS, and Whisper, run:

create-embark-dapp my-dapp --demo

The --demo flag is an alias for --template demo.
See Starting from Templates.

--simple

To create a barebones project meant only for contract development, run:

create-embark-dapp my-dapp --simple

The --simple flag is an alias for --template simple.
See Starting from Templates.

Running a DApp

Once the installation is finished, you can run some commands in your project:

npm run dev

Runs the DApp in development mode.
Open http://localhost:8000 to view it in the browser.

npm run embark <cmd>

Invoke Embark commands. For example:

npm run embark build

🎉  Add a command alias to your shell to cut down on typing npm run embark.

If you're using bash, you could add the following to ~/.bashrc and/or execute it at a bash prompt.

alias embark='npm run embark'

Inside a DApp project directory embark build would then be equivalent to npm run embark build.

Starting from Templates

There are templates in the Embark repo (the list will be growing!) that you can use to bootstrap your DApp.

--template

To use a template:

1. Go to https://embark.status.im/create-embark-dapp#templates
2. Search for a template you want and get its name (looks like basic-contracts)
3. Run: create-embark-dapp another-dapp --template basic-contracts
4. Done 💥

boilerplate

When the --template flag is not used or no value is supplied, and neither --demo nor --simple is used, it's equivalent to indicating --template boilerplate.

Note:   it is incorrect to use the --template flag while also using --demo and/or --simple. Likewise, it is incorrect to use both --demo and --simple.

--template-source

To use a specific source for the template code, any npm package specifier (URL, folder, gzipped tarball, etc.) may be supplied to the --template-source flag.

So if a user ghuser has forked Embark and has a branch named my-templates, the following could be run:

create-embark-dapp my-dapp \
                   --template-source 'ghuser/embark#my-templates'

The package will be fetched with npm pack and decompressed. The only expectation is that the extracted archive will have the following structure:

.
  package.json
  templates/
    <template-name>/

The extracted package.json will be ignored, but it must be present and valid per npm's description of a package.

When the --template-source flag is not used, it's equivalent to indicating --template-source embark.

The --template-source flag may be used with or without the --template flag, and may be used in conjunction with other flags.

--embark-version

To override the version of Embark specified as a dependency in a template's package.json, indicate any npm dependency value (version number or range, URL, path, etc.) that will be valid relative to "dependencies": {"embark": "<value>"}.

create-embark-dapp my-dapp \
                   --template showcase-feature \
                   --template-source 'embark-framework/embark#new-templates-wip'
                   --embark-version 'ghuser/embark#fix-feature'

Note:   it is incorrect to use this flag without supplying a value.

The --embark-version flag may be used with or without the --template flag, and may be used in conjunction with other flags.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the authors of existing open source projects for the inspiration they provided:

• Create Next App
• Create React App

Looking for alternatives? Here are some other Ethereum dev kits:

• Truffle

Questions? Feedback? Please let us know.