Dev Environment

This guide walks you through setting up a development environment for trading with the Darkfibre SDK.

Install Node.js

The SDK requires Node.js version 20 or higher.

1. Go to nodejs.org
2. Download the LTS version
3. Run the installer
4. Verify the installation:

node --version
# Should output v20.x.x or higher

Create Your Project

Create a new directory for your trading project:

mkdir darkfibre-trader
cd darkfibre-trader
npm init -y

Install Dependencies

Install the Darkfibre SDK and required packages:

npm install @darkfibre/sdk dotenv
npm install -D typescript tsx @types/node

This installs:

• @darkfibre/sdk - The official Darkfibre TypeScript SDK
• dotenv - For loading environment variables from .env
• typescript - TypeScript compiler
• tsx - TypeScript execution (run .ts files directly)
• @types/node - TypeScript types for Node.js

Create tsconfig.json

Create a tsconfig.json file in your project root:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2022",
    "module": "ES2022",
    "moduleResolution": "Node",
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "strict": true,
    "skipLibCheck": true,
    "outDir": "dist"
  },
  "include": ["*.ts"]
}

Create Project Structure

Create your main file:

touch index.ts

Or create it in your IDE.

Set Up Environment Variables

Create a .env file in your project root to store your credentials:

.env

DARKFIBRE_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
SOLANA_PRIVATE_KEY=your_private_key_here

Replace the placeholder values after you complete the next steps.

Never commit credentials

Add .env to your .gitignore to prevent accidentally committing your credentials.

Create or update your .gitignore:

*.env

Verify Setup

Your project structure should look like this:

darkfibre-trader/
├── node_modules/
├── index.ts
├── .env
├── .gitignore
├── package-lock.json
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

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Next: Register for an API key