dfx start
Use the dfx start command to start a local canister execution environment and web server processes for the current project. This command enables you to deploy canisters to the local canister execution environment to test your dapps during development.
Note that you can only run this command from within the project directory structure. For example, if your project name is hello_world, your current working directory must be the hello_world top-level project directory or one of its subdirectories.
Basic usage
dfx start [option] [flag]
Flags
You can use the following optional flags with the dfx start command.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
--background | Starts the local canister execution environment and web server processes in the background and waits for a reply before returning to the shell. |
--clean | Starts the local canister execution environment and web server processes in a clean state by removing checkpoints from your project cache. You can use this flag to set your project cache to a new state when troubleshooting or debugging. |
--enable-bitcoin | Enables bitcoin integration. |
--enable-canister-http | Enables canister HTTP requests. |
-h, --help | Displays usage information. |
-V, --version | Displays version information. |
Options
You can use the following option with the dfx start command.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
--host host | Specifies the host interface IP address and port number to bind the frontend to. The default is 127.0.0.1:8000. |
--bitcoin-node host:port | Specifies the address of a bitcoind node. Implies --enable-bitcoin. |
Examples
You can start the local canister execution environment and web server processes in the current shell by running the following command:
dfx start
If you start the local canister execution environment in the current shell, you need to open a new terminal shell to run additional commands. Alternatively, you can start the local canister execution environment in the background by running the following command:
dfx start --background
If you run the local canister execution environment in the background, however, be sure to stop the local canister execution environment before uninstalling or reinstalling the dfx execution environment by running the following command:
dfx stop
You can view the current process identifier (pid) for the local canister execution environment process started by dfx by running the following command:
more .dfx/pid