Start a Local Network

The SOMA CLI provides the soma start command to create and start a local instance of the SOMA network, including a faucet and model scoring services.

Local Start Command

soma start localnet --force-regenesis

Calls the SOMA CLI binary with the localnet subcommand and one flag:

• --force-regenesis to generate a new genesis and not persist the local network state.

The localnet bundles a faucet and scoring services by default.

Caution

Each time you start the network by passing --force-regenesis, the local network starts from a random genesis with no previous data and the local network is not persisted. If you want to persist data, do not pass the --force-regenesis flag.

A temporary directory is created in /tmp, which might not work if the /tmp folder is mounted to /tmpfs. If this is the case, set TMPDIR=./some_folder.

Persisting local network state

If you stop and start the network without the --force-regenesis flag, all history is preserved and accessible.

By default, soma start uses an existing genesis and network configuration if the ~/.soma/soma_config folder exists and includes a genesis.blob file. If the folder does not exist, it creates the folder and generates a new genesis configuration. If you pass --network.config , the command checks for the network configuration file and tries to load the genesis blob as per the network configuration file.

To generate a custom genesis, use the soma genesis command and pass the desired custom values. For more information about possible flags and options, run soma genesis --help .