Creating a New Package

TIP

At any time, you can review projects hosted in example directory from Scarb repository.

To start a new package with Scarb, use scarb new:

scarb new hello_world

The argument passed here is a name of the directory that Scarb will create. It will also use it for package name. To use a different package name, pass --name your_package_name. This also initializes a new Git repository by default. If you don't want it to do that, pass --no-vcs.

As the result of running scarb new, Scarb has created two files:

• Scarb.toml
• src/lib.cairo

Let's take a closer look at Scarb.toml:

[package]
name = "hello_world"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2023_10"

[dependencies]

This is called a manifest, and it contains all information that Scarb needs to compile your package. This file is written in the TOML format.

The src directory contains the source code of your package, and the lib.cairo is the main file.

Here's what's in src/lib.cairo:

fn fib(a: felt252, b: felt252, n: felt252) -> felt252 {
    match n {
        0 => a,
        _ => fib(b, a + b, n - 1),
    }
}

Scarb generated a "hello world" code for us, a simple Fibonacci function that is exported by our package. Let's compile it:

$ scarb build
   Compiling hello_world v0.1.0 (/path/to/package/hello_world/Scarb.toml)
    Finished release target(s) in 2 seconds

This will create a Sierra code of your program in target/dev/hello_world.sierra.json.

Creating a Starknet package

To compile Starknet contracts, you need to add starknet-contract target and a starknet dependency to your manifest:

[package]
name = "hello_world"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2023_10"

[dependencies]
starknet = ">=2.6.3"

[[target.starknet-contract]]

The target definition will let Scarb know, that it should produce Starknet contract artifacts. The starknet dependency tells Scarb to use a Starknet plugin during compilation of your contract.

Then, you can replace the src/lib.cairo file with your Starknet contract source code. To compile it, simply run the same build command as you would for a regular Cairo package:

$ scarb build
   Compiling hello_world v0.1.0 (/path/to/package/hello_world/Scarb.toml)
    Finished release target(s) in 2 seconds

This will create a Sierra contract class artifact of your program in target/dev/hello_world.contract_class.json that can be deployed to Starknet network.