Prerequisites & Installation

What you need depends on what you want to build. Start here to find the right setup for your goals.

What Do You Want to Do?

Goal	Tools Required
Run the Vela Nova example with a pre-built app	Docker, Git
Write your own WASM application	Docker, Git, TinyGo, Go
Build the novaw wallet CLI from source	Docker, Git, Go
Use the TypeScript client in a browser or frontend	Docker, Git, Node.js

Tool Reference

Docker (required for all)

Vela's local stack runs entirely in Docker. Install Docker Desktop or Docker Engine with Compose v2 for your platform.

Git (required for all)

Required to clone the starter kit and related repositories.

git clone https://github.com/HorizenOfficial/vela-starterkit.git
cd vela-starterkit

TinyGo v0.39.0 (required for WASM development)

TinyGo is required to compile your application to WebAssembly. Standard go build will not work — the binary must be built with tinygo build -target=wasi.

# macOS
brew install tinygo

# Linux — download the .deb package from https://github.com/tinygo-org/tinygo/releases/tag/v0.39.0

You can skip this if you only want to run the pre-built payment_app.wasm from the Vela Nova guide.

Go v1.21+ (required for building from source)

Go is needed to build the novaw wallet CLI from source and to run the full test suite. It is also a dependency of TinyGo.

If you only want to run the pre-built novaw binary (available as a release artifact), you can skip Go.

Node.js v18+ (optional)

Only needed if you plan to use the @horizen/vela-common-ts TypeScript client for browser or frontend integrations.

Starting the Local Stack

Once you have the tools installed, bring up the local environment:

cd vela-starterkit
docker compose up

The starter kit handles container orchestration, environment configuration, and sample application deployment. The stack is fully ready when executor, manager, and authorityservice are all healthy — typically 30 to 60 seconds after startup.