The CLI is a proxy to the wallet server, which is required for most commands. Commands are turned into corresponding API calls, and submitted to an up-and-running server. Some commands do not require an active server and can be run “offline”. (e.g. ‘recovery-phrase generate’)

Usage: cardano-wallet COMMAND
  Cardano Wallet Command-Line Interface (CLI)

Available OPTIONS:
  -h | --help

Available COMMANDS:
  launch                      Launch and monitor a wallet server and its chain producers.
  serve                       Serve an HTTP API that listens for commands/actions.
  recovery-phrase
    generate               Generate an English recovery phrases
  wallet
    list                   List all known wallets
    create
      from-recovery-phrase Create a new wallet using a recovery-phrase
      from-public-key      Create a wallet using a public account key
    get                    Fetch a particular wallet
    utxo                   Get a wallet's UTxO distribution
    update
      passphrase           Update a wallet's master passphrase
      name                 Update a wallet's name
    delete                 Forget a wallet and its metadata
  transaction
    create                 Create a transaction from a known wallet
    fees                   Estimate fees for a transaction
    list                   List the transactions associated with a wallet
    submit                 Submit an externally-signed transaction
    forget                 Forget a pending transaction with specified id
  address
    list                   List all known addresses of a wallet
  stake-pool
      list                 List all known stake pools
  network
    information            View network information
    parameters             View network parameters
    clock                  View NTP offset
  key
    from-recovery-phrase   Convert a recovery phrase to an extended private key
    child                  Derive child keys from a parent public or private key
    public                 Get the public counterpart of a private key
    inspect                Show information about a key
  version                  Show the program's current version

ℹ️ The CLI commands for wallet, transaction and address only output valid JSON on stdout. So you may redirect the output to a file with > or pipe it into utility softwares like jq!

💝 For bash/zsh auto-completion, put the following script in your /etc/bash_completion.d:

cardano-wallet.sh

_cardano-wallet()
{
   local CMDLINE
   local IFS=$'\n'
   CMDLINE=(--bash-completion-index $COMP_CWORD)

   for arg in ${COMP_WORDS[@]}; do
       CMDLINE=(${CMDLINE[@]} --bash-completion-word $arg)
   done

   COMPREPLY=( $(cardano-wallet "${CMDLINE[@]}") )
}

complete -o filenames -F _cardano-wallet cardano-wallet

Commands

launch

Launches and manages two sub-processes:

A wallet server (using cardano-wallet serve)
A target chain producer (Jörmungandr)

This is a shortcut command for those looking into an out-of-the-box solution for running the software.

Many options supported by cardano-wallet serve are also supported by `launch`.

Invocation

cardano-wallet launch
  [--listen-address HOST]
  ([--random-port] | [--port INT])
  [--node-port INT]
  [--state-dir DIR]
  [--sync-tolerance DURATION]
  ([--quiet] | [--verbose])
  (--genesis-block-hash STRING | --genesis-block FILE)
  [-- ARGUMENTS...]

–state-dir

cardano-wallet launch will store the wallet databases and Jörmungandr chain data inside the folder specified by --state-dir. If it does not exist, it will be created.

–genesis-block | –genesis-block-hash

The genesis block file can be obtained using Jörmungandr’s tool command-line jcli as follows:

$ jcli genesis encode --input genesis.yaml > block0.bin

Here below is an example of genesis file that can be used for testing:

genesis.yaml

# The Blockchain Configuration defines the different settings
# of the blockchain that cannot be changed once the blockchain
# is started.
blockchain_configuration:
  # The block0-date defines the date the blockchain starts
  # expected value in seconds since UNIX_EPOCH
  block0_date: 1556202057

  # This is the type of dicrimination of the blockchain
  # of this blockchain is meant for production then
  # use 'production' instead.
  #
  # otherwise leave as this
  discrimination: test

  # The initial consensus version:
  #
  # * BFT consensus: bft
  # * Genesis Praos consensus: genesis
  block0_consensus: genesis_praos

  # Number of slots in each epoch
  slots_per_epoch: 500

  # The slot duration, in seconds, is the time between the creation
  # of 2 blocks
  slot_duration: 10

  # The number of blocks (*10) per epoch
  epoch_stability_depth: 10

  # A list of Ed25519 Extended PublicKey that represents the
  # BFT leaders encoded as bech32. The order in the list matters.
  consensus_leader_ids:
    - ed25519_pk1haythczarvl75wt6y6fmq0gjz7j9xcyfatwchj523wdawechkd8qp735w5

  # Genesis praos parameter D
  bft_slots_ratio: 0

  # Genesis praos active slot coefficient
  # Determines minimum stake required to try becoming slot leader, must be in range (0,1]
  consensus_genesis_praos_active_slot_coeff: 0.22

  # This is the max number of messages allowed in a given Block
  max_number_of_transactions_per_block: 255

  # The fee calculations settings
  #
  # fee(num_bytes, has_certificate) = constant + num_bytes * coefficient + has_certificate * certificate
  linear_fees:
    constant: 42
    coefficient: 0
    certificate: 0

  # The speed to update the KES Key in seconds
  kes_update_speed: 43200 # 12hours

# The initial deposits present in the blockchain.
initial:
  - fund:
      address: ta1swk7svu8avn5jysl83vja72lp0sqfczanqee6q08a4j7q27a77kpg4p254a
      value: 100000000000
  # And so forth...

example

$ cardano-wallet launch --genesis-block block0.bin -- --secret secret.yaml

– ARGUMENTS…

All other arguments are passed to the jormungandr child process. Place -- before the Jörmungandr arguments so that they are not interpreted as cardano-wallet arguments.

Special Value	Meaning
`*`	any IPv4 or IPv6 hostname
`*4`	any IPv4 or IPv6 hostname, IPv4 preferred
`!4`	any IPv4 hostname
`*6`	any IPv4 or IPv6 hostname, IPv6 preferred
`!6`	any IPv6 hostname

Command-Line Interface

Commands

launch

Invocation

–state-dir

–genesis-block | –genesis-block-hash

example

– ARGUMENTS…

serve

Invocation

–listen-address

–database

–genesis-block-hash

example

Logging options for launch / serve

example

recovery-phrase generate

wallet list

wallet create from recovery-phrase

wallet create from public key

wallet get

wallet utxo

wallet update name

wallet update passphrase

wallet delete

transaction create

transaction fees

transaction list

transaction submit

transaction forget

address list

stake pool list

network information

network parameters

network clock

key from-recovery-phrase

key child

key public

key inspect

version