Init

Create a contract.dev.{js,cjs} config file in the current directory. Every other CLI command reads this file to find your Stagenet’s RPC URL.

Usage


contract.dev init
contract.dev init --rpc-url=<YOUR_STAGENET_RPC_URL>
contract.dev init --force

Flag	Description
`--rpc-url=<url>`	Optional. Fill in the RPC URL up front. Omit to write a placeholder you’ll edit by hand.
`--force`, `-f`	Overwrite an existing `contract.dev.{js,cjs}` instead of erroring.

The file written looks like:


/** @type {import('contract.dev').Config} */
module.exports = {
  rpcUrl: "<YOUR_STAGENET_RPC_URL>",
};

Get your Stagenet RPC URL from your project dashboard at contract.dev.

CommonJS vs ESM

The CLI picks the extension based on the nearest package.json:

package.json does not set "type": "module" → writes contract.dev.js
package.json sets "type": "module" → writes contract.dev.cjs

The loader uses require(), so .cjs is needed in ESM projects to avoid Node’s “Must use import to load ES Module” error.

Errors


contract.dev.js already exists
Use --force to overwrite.

If either contract.dev.js or contract.dev.cjs already exists, init refuses to write — re-run with --force to overwrite. The CLI never creates both side-by-side.

contract.dev.{js,cjs} is a regular Node module loaded with require(). You can use env vars, path.join, imports, and template literals to compute paths or pull the RPC URL from secrets — see Dynamic paths for examples.

Available fields


interface Config {
  rpcUrl?: string;
  contracts?: string;   // override Foundry/Hardhat source dir
  artifacts?: string;   // override Foundry/Hardhat compiled-artifacts dir
}

contracts and artifacts are only needed when the CLI can’t auto-detect them from foundry.toml / hardhat.config — see import-contracts.