Quick Start

This guide is intended as a way to help you discover and familiarize with the APIs, as opposed to integrating it into your project. For that check out the "Quick Start - Integrate" guide.

A step-by-step guide to integrating hREA v0.3.3 into your scaffolded Holochain application.

⚠️ Version Compatibility Notice:

• hREA v0.3.3 is compatible with Holochain v0.5.x

This guide is specifically designed for hREA version 0.3.3. Different versions may require different integration steps.

Prerequisites

This guide assumes you are starting a new Holochain application from scratch using the official scaffolding tool.

1. Install Holochain Development Environment

Follow the official Holochain installation guide to set up your development environment. This is most easily done using Nix Flakes.

Installing Holochain Development Environment

This process will install:

• The Nix package manager

• The holochain and hc command-line tools

• All other required dependencies for Holochain development

2. Create a Scaffolded Holochain Web App

Once your development environment is installed, create a new Holochain web application using the scaffolding tool. This will generate a project with a basic DNA and a starter UI.

# Navigate to your projects directory
cd ~/your-projects-directory

# Create a scaffolded Holochain web app
nix run "github:holochain/holochain?rev=0a9b89382186834273c3734e5659f7c009139265#hc-scaffold" web-app

During the interactive scaffolding process, you will be asked for:

• UI Framework: Choose your preferred frontend framework (the rest of this guide will use framework-agnostic examples that can be adapted to any UI).

• App name: Your preferred name (e.g., my-hrea-app).

• Holonix environment: Yes (recommended for reproducibility).

• Package manager: Your preference (npm, bun, pnpm, or yarn).

• Initial DNA: Yes.

• DNA name: Your preferred name (e.g., my_dna).

This will create a new directory with a complete project structure, ready for you to build on.

For more detailed scaffolding instructions, you can refer to the official documentation: Holochain Forum App Tutorial - Scaffolding Steps

Next Steps

Once you have scaffolded your new application, you are ready to begin integrating the hREA modules. The next section, the Integration Guide, will walk you through the process of adding the hREA DNA to your project and configuring it correctly.