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Getting Started

Let's explore the obligatory Hello World example as an end-to-end Fluence Functions application, which includes the following steps:

  • Scaffold a Fluence Functions project with the Fluence CLI
  • Create the Hello World example and compile it to Wasm
  • Distribute the Wasm module to capacity (hardware) providers
  • Execute your Fluence Functions Hello World application

But first, let's get set up.

Setting Up​

The best and recommended way to interact with the Fluence serverless network is to use the Fluence CLI. The CLI provides full lifecycle management for your Fluence Functions as well as your tooling and development dependencies.

Fluence CLI requires node version 18 and can be installed as a binary:

bash
curl -qsL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fluencelabs/cli/main/install.sh | bash
bash
curl -qsL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fluencelabs/cli/main/install.sh | bash
note

Currently, Fluence CLI does not support native Windows. Use Windows Linux Subsystem (WLS). This constraint should be gone soon.

info

During the installation process, you may be asked to provide sudo access to set the symlink for the binary. Alternative installation approaches can be found in the ??? section.

After the installation process is complete, you should be able to use FLuence CLI and determine its version:

bash
fluence --version
@fluencelabs/cli/0.12.7 darwin-arm64 node-v18.17.1
bash
fluence --version
@fluencelabs/cli/0.12.7 darwin-arm64 node-v18.17.1

If you get the above cli version, or higher, you are good to go but should run fluence update just for good measure. Any trouble? Contact us on the Fluence discord development channel.

Hello World​

With the Fluence CLI installed, let's scaffold our hello world project:

bash
fluence init hello-fluence
bash
fluence init hello-fluence

You will be asked to choose between different scaffolding templates:

bash
 fluence init hello-fluence
? Select template (Use arrow keys)
❯ quickstart
  minimal
  ts
  js
bash
 fluence init hello-fluence
? Select template (Use arrow keys)
❯ quickstart
  minimal
  ts
  js

Select the (default) quickstart template and in the subsequent network selection prompt continue to stay with the default (kras). Fluence CLI now scaffolds a project with the quickstart template. Since this is your first use of the Fluence CLI, several dependencies may be downloaded and installed. Once the project has been successfully installed, you should see a message similar to:

bash
Successfully initialized Fluence CLI project template at <your path>/hello-fluence
bash
Successfully initialized Fluence CLI project template at <your path>/hello-fluence

Now cd into the hello-fluence directory and feel free to poke around the project. Our next step is to run hello world 

bash
$ fluence run -f 'helloWorldRemote("Fluence")' --quiet
bash
$ fluence run -f 'helloWorldRemote("Fluence")' --quiet

Which results in the following response:

bash
"Hi, Fluence"
bash
"Hi, Fluence"

Congratulations! You just scaffolded your first Fluence Functions project and executed your first Hello World on a remote peer operated by Fluence. We'll revisit our Hello World project in the Quickstart section.