Axelar Local Cross-Chain Dev Environment

Welcome to the Axelar Local Development Environment! This monorepo contains essential packages to facilitate local cross-chain development:

• Core Package: @axelar-network/axelar-local-dev
• Optional Packages:
  • @axelar-network/axelar-local-dev-sui
  • @axelar-network/axelar-local-dev-cosmos

The axelar-local-dev package is all you need for cross-chain applications between EVM chains. However, if you wish to explore cross-chain applications between EVM chains and other chain stacks, check out our specific guides:

• Evm <-> Sui Integration Guide
• Evm <-> Cosmos Integration Guide

Prerequisites

• This project is developed with Ethers.js version 5. Please note that it may not function correctly if you are using Ethers.js version 6 or later. It is recommended to use version 5 to ensure compatibility and proper operation of the project.

• Local chains are backed by Foundry's anvil, which the library spawns as a child process. Install Foundry and make sure anvil is on your PATH:

  curl -L https://foundry.paradigm.xyz | bash && foundryup

• Contributing to this monorepo uses the Node version in .nvmrc and pnpm (enable it with corepack enable). Install workspace dependencies with pnpm install.

Installation

To install the core package, use the following command:

npm install @axelar-network/axelar-local-dev

Practical Examples

Visit our axelar-examples repo repository to see practical applications of this local development environment.

Usage & Documentation

• Executing Cross-Chain Transactions Guide
• Setting Up a Standalone Cross-Chain Environment
• API Reference

Known limitations

Local-dev lags mainnet on the Axelar Solidity stack — see mainnet parity gaps. In short:

• Interchain Token Service: local-dev uses ITS 1.2.4; mainnet runs ITS 2.1.1 (the ITS Hub architecture), so the ITS API and cross-chain routing differ from mainnet.
• AxelarGasService: local-dev's gas service (cgp 6.2.1) has no on-chain estimateGasFee/payGas; mainnet's (cgp ~6.4.0) does — so on-chain gas-estimation examples can't run locally.

Both are closed by the same cgp-6.4 / gmp-sdk-6 / ITS-2.1.1 stack bump.

Supported Chain Stacks

We currently support the following chain stacks:

• EVM
• Sui
• Cosmos