Running the Starter Rollup

This chapter is about one thing: getting to run your first rollup. We'll do this by cloning a pre-built starter rollup and running it on your local machine. We'll save the fun part—writing your own code—for the next chapter.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following installed on your system:

• Rust: Version 1.88 or later. We recommend installing it via rustup. The starter repository uses a rust-toolchain.toml file to automatically select the correct toolchain version.
• Node.js and npm: Version 20.0 or later. We'll use this for the Typescript client in a later chapter. Install here.
• Git: For cloning the starter repository.

Running the Rollup

With the prerequisites installed, running the rollup takes just two commands.

1. Clone the starter repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Sovereign-Labs/rollup-starter.git
   cd rollup-starter
   

2. Build and run the node:

   cargo run 
   

   You should see a stream of log messages, indicating that the rollup node is running and producing new blocks. Keep this terminal window open.

   Note: The first build can take several minutes as Cargo downloads and compiles all the dependencies. Subsequent builds will be much faster.

Verifying the Node is Running

Open a new terminal window. We can verify that the node is running and all its core components have loaded by querying its list of modules.

Modules are the individual building blocks of a Sovereign SDK rollup, each handling a specific feature like token management (bank) or the sequencer registry. Let's query the /modules endpoint to see which ones are active in the starter rollup:

curl 'http://127.0.0.1:12346/modules'

If everything is working, you should see a JSON response listing the default modules included in the starter rollup, like bank, accounts, and sequencer_registry.

{
  "data": {
    "modules": [
      "bank",
      "sequencer_registry",
      "accounts",
      "value_setter"
      // ... and others
    ]
  },
  "meta": {}
}

What's Next?

Now that you've successfully run the starter rollup, let's get you building your own.