Quickstart

By the end of this guide, you will have deployed a program onto the Entropy blockchain and be able to interact with it to produce signatures. These terms (deploy, program, blockchain, signature) may be a bit foreign to you right now, and that’s ok! You don’t need to understand everything in order to play around with Entropy.

ℹ️

If you’d prefer to dive into the core concepts of Entropy instead of running through this quickstart, head over to the Entrosplainer to learn how the project works!

What is Entropy

The Entropy network provides threshold signing as a service. That means multiple users can collectively sign a message to perform some function on any blockchain network. Entropy can also be used to perform non-blockchain tasks like encrypting and decrypting chunks of data. That’s all we will cover now, but you’ll learn more about Entropy in other parts of this docs website.

1. Install CLI

The command-line interface (CLI) is the most straightforward way to interact with Entropy from your device.

Ensure you have Node.js version 20.9.0 or above:
```
node --version
```
```
v22.2.0
```
Install the Entropy CLI globally using NPM:
```
npm install --global @entropyxyz/cli
```

Run the CLI using entropy:

entropy

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                                                    @@@@@@            TEST               
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                                                    @@@@@@     ENTROPY-CLI               
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? Select Action (Use arrow keys)
❯ Manage Accounts
  Balance
  Register
  Sign
  Transfer
  Deploy Program
  User Programs
  Exit

ℹ️

Closing the CLI: You can close the CLI tool anytime by pressing CTRL + c. This will halt the CLI process and return you to your normal terminal window.

Next, you’ll create an Entropy account.

2. Create an account

You need funds to interact with the Entropy network. Your funds are stored in an account. You can have multiple accounts.

Select Manage Accounts.
Select Create/Import Account.
Type n and press ENTER when asked Would you like to import a key?:
```
? Would you like to import a key? n
```
Enter the name of your new account. The CLI will output some information about it:
```
New account:
{
        name: MyFirstAccount
        address: 5HMnksPMRPqsDqyCj31VoQFgpiswsr12bk2YTyfMUEKCm2bv
}
```
Make a note of the address field. You’ll need that in the next step.
Type Y and press ENTER to return to the main menu.

Next up, you’ll request some funds to play around with.

3. Get testing funds

You need funds to interact with the Entropy blockchain network. To get these testing funds, you will need a GitHub account.

Log into your GitHub account and go to github.com/entropyxyz/community.
Navigate to the Discussions tab and select New discussion.
Next to Get Test Funds click Get started:
In the Title field, enter the address you copied from the previous section.
Enter any text into the Description field; GitHub doesn’t allow users to leave this field blank. If you need more than 10,000 test funds, enter the amount of funds you need and why into this field.
Click Start discussion.

At this point, someone from Entropy will send you some test funds. Once they’ve sent the funds to your provided address, they’ll let you know and close the issue.

⚠️

We’re currently publically testing some of the Entropy tooling. As such, some of the workflows, like getting test funds, are a bit rough. We’re building an automated faucet to hand out test funds, and we’ll update this page when it’s ready.

Once you have been sent some funds, you can check your balance in the CLI.

Open the CLI text-based user interface using yarn start.
Select Balance from the menu.
You should see your account in the list. Use the arrow keys to highlight it and press ENTER.

The CLI should show your balance:

? Select Action Balance
Address 5Dcps2RdXPQfiJBxxDnrF8iDzDHcnZC8rb5mcJ3xicqzhYbv has a balance of: 100000000000000 bits

Next, you’ll register your account on the Entropy network.

4. Register your account

Registering an account is a feature unique to Entropy. Without going into too much detail, it advertises to the network that you own this account and that you’re ready to start signing things.

Back at the main menu within the CLI, select Register:

? Select Action
  Manage Accounts
  Balance
> Register
  Sign
  Transfer
  Deploy Program
  User Programs
  Exit

The CLI will send your selected account information to the network. The network will then register your account as long as you have enough funds.

Attempting to register the address: 5Dcps2RdXPQfiJBxxDnrF8iDzDHcnZC8rb5mcJ3xicqzhYbv
Your address 5Dcps2RdXPQfiJBxxDnrF8iDzDHcnZC8rb5mcJ3xicqzhYbv has been successfully registered.

Press Y to go back to the main menu.

Next up, we’ll attempt to get a signature from the network!

5. Get a signature

Back at the main menu within the CLI, select Sign:

? Select Action
  Manage Accounts
  Balance
  Register
> Sign
  Transfer
  Deploy Program
  User Programs
  Exit

Select Sign With Adapter.
Select Text Input.

The CLI will prompt you to enter a message in the default terminal-based text editor on your system:

? Enter the message you wish to sign (this will open your default editor): Press <enter> to launch your preferred editor.

Press ENTER to open a text editor.
Within your text editor, enter a message. It doesn’t matter what the message is at this point.
Once you have finished entering your message into the text editor, save and quit the text editor.

The CLI will output a base64 encoded string:

signature: 0x4dc30d4b250900148b1facd054fdc611bd1c4103bf20409bf57fa04db5ba8fd00515ef9c497223e174ebad2bf69830997256c4081868b9f7f4b1f729eb8662ad00

Congratulations! You just received a signature from the Entropy network using the CLI!

So, what was all that about? While this quickstart guide didn’t go into much detail regarding the theory of what you just did and why, you should now have a solid understanding of the steps available to you using Entropy.

Next steps

There’s much more to come from Entropy! Next, you should check out the Entrosplainer, an end-to-end explanation of what Entropy is, why it’s necessary, and how it works!

Entrosplainer