Nixos

This book heavily leverages Nix in examples to make it easier for you to build and fetch tools used in examples. Get started by installing Nix. You do not need to actually learn the Nix language to read this book, although some basic knowledge may help you out.

Following Along

Whenever we provide code examples for you to execute in your shell, the code snippet will be accompanied by a Nix tab. The Nix tab shows you the commands necessary to load the tools into your shell for executing that snippet.

For example, here is a snippet to query the Union GraphQL API, which requires graphqurl to execute. If you click on the Nix tab and copy the lines there, graphqurl will be installed in your shell.

Don't worry about bloating your system. Once you close the shell, everything that was installed will be gone again.

Here for example, we show how to query for packets using gq.

gq https://development.graphql.union.build/v1/graphql -q '
{
  v2_packets(args: { p_limit: 3 }) {
    packet_hash
    packet_send_block_hash
  }
}
'

nix shell nixpkgs#nodePackages.graphqurl

If you decide not to use nix, do not worry. We rely mainly on common, open-source software, that can usually be installed using npm or brew. All examples can still be followed along with alternative installation methods.