Quickstart

Overview

Solo Quickstart provides a single, one-shot command path to deploy a running Hiero test network using the Solo CLI tool. This guide covers installing Solo, running the one-shot deployment, verifying the network, and accessing local service endpoints.

Note: This guide assumes basic familiarity with command-line interfaces and Docker.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have completed the following:

• System Readiness:
  • Prepare your local environment (Docker, Kind, Kubernetes, and related tooling) by following the System Readiness guide.

Note: Quickstart only covers what you need to run solo one-shot single deploy and verify that the network is working. Detailed version requirements, OS-specific notes, and optional tools are documented in System Readiness.

Install Solo CLI

Install the latest Solo CLI globally using one of the following methods:

• Homebrew (recommended for macOS/Linux/WSL2):

  brew install hiero-ledger/tools/solo
  

• npm (alternative installation method):

  npm install -g @hiero-ledger/solo@latest
  

  Note: npm installation is an alternative to Homebrew. The Homebrew tap is the recommended installation method as it includes kubectl and Helm as dependencies and may have more up-to-date releases.

Verify the installation

Confirm that Solo is installed and available on your PATH:

solo --version

Expected output (version may be different):

** Solo **
Version : 0.59.1
**

If you see a similar banner with a valid Solo version (for example, 0.59.1), your installation is successful.

Deploy a local network (one-shot)

Use the one-shot command to create and configure a fully functional local Hiero network:

solo one-shot single deploy

This command performs the following actions:

• Creates or connects to a local Kubernetes cluster using Kind.
• Deploys the Solo network components.
• Sets up and funds default test accounts.
• Exposes gRPC and JSON-RPC endpoints for client access.

What gets deployed

solo one-shot multi deploy --num-consensus-nodes 3

solo one-shot multi destroy

Verify the network

After the one-shot deployment completes, verify that the Kubernetes workloads are healthy.

You can monitor the Kubernetes workloads with standard tools:

kubectl get pods -A | grep -v kube-system

Confirm that all Solo-related pods are in a Running or Completed state.

Tip: The Solo testing team recommends k9s for managing Kubernetes clusters. It provides a terminal-based UI that makes it easy to view pods, logs, and cluster status. Install it with brew install k9s and run k9s to launch.

Access your local network

After the one-shot deployment completes and all pods are running, Solo sets up port-forwards so you can reach your local services. The endpoints below are the default ports for Solo 0.63 and later:

Open http://localhost:38080 in your browser to explore your network.

Port availability

The ports above are Solo’s defaults. Solo uses kubectl port-forward to tunnel traffic from your machine to services running inside Kubernetes. Before opening each tunnel, Solo tries the configured port:

• If the port is free, Solo logs: Using requested port <port>.
• If the port is already occupied (by another process, or by a previous Solo session that did not clean up its port-forwards), Solo finds the next available port and logs: Using available port <port>.

The actual ports used are printed at the end of solo one-shot single deploy and saved to a file.

Note: The commands below use $(cat ~/.solo/cache/last-one-shot-deployment.txt) to look up the deployment name automatically. This cache file is only created by solo one-shot commands. If you deployed using individual CLI commands, this file does not exist - find your deployment name with solo deployment config list instead, then substitute it in place of the $(cat ...) subshell.

To see the active port assignments:

cat ~/.solo/one-shot-$(cat ~/.solo/cache/last-one-shot-deployment.txt)/forwards

To check deployment info including port assignments:

solo deployment config info --deployment $(cat ~/.solo/cache/last-one-shot-deployment.txt)

To restore port-forwards after a system restart without redeploying:

solo deployment refresh port-forwards --deployment $(cat ~/.solo/cache/last-one-shot-deployment.txt)

Endpoints for Solo 0.62 and earlier

If you are using Solo 0.62 or earlier, the default port-forward targets differ:

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser to explore your network.

Note: localhost:5551 is the direct Mirror Node REST service, accessible only via manual kubectl port-forward, and is being phased out. Always use the ingress-based port (8081 for Solo 0.62 and earlier, 38081 for Solo 0.63+).