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CosmWasm Quickstart

The fastest path from nothing to a deployed contract on Osmosis. Each step links to the page with the full detail; this page is the ordered happy path.

1. Scaffold a contract​

Use cargo generate with the official CosmWasm template to create a working contract and build system:

cargo install cargo-generate --features vendored-openssl
cargo generate --git https://github.com/CosmWasm/cw-template.git --name my-contract
cd my-contract

This gives you a cargo project with a sample contract (the standard counter), an entry-point layout, and a build setup you can customize.

2. Add cw-orchestrator​

cw-orchestrator is the actively maintained tool for building, deploying, and testing CosmWasm contracts, and the recommended path on Osmosis. Add it to the contract crate as an optional dependency:

cargo add --optional cw-orch

Adding it as optional and enabling it behind an interface feature flag keeps cw-orch out of the compiled wasm artifact. You then define a typed interface for the contract and use it to write deploy and test scripts that run unchanged against a local chain, a testnet, or mainnet. See Scripts and Tests with cw-orchestrator for the feature setup, the interface macro, and the full workflow.

3. Build and test locally​

Develop against a local chain. Spin up LocalOsmosis:

make localnet-start    # from a checkout of the osmosis repo

Then build, upload, and instantiate the contract against it from a cw-orch script:

let counter = CounterContract::new(chain);
counter.upload()?;
counter.instantiate(&InstantiateMsg { count: 0 }, None, &[])?;

cw-orchestrator also runs the same scripts against cw-multi-test and Osmosis Test Tube for fast unit and integration tests with no node running. See CosmWasm & LocalOsmosis for the local accounts and full workflow.

4. Deploy to testnet​

When the contract works locally, point the same cw-orch script at a public testnet, or upload with osmosisd directly (see testnet deployment). Storing code on a network where governance gates it goes through a governance proposal.

Beaker was a popular all-in-one scaffolding and deployment tool, but it is no longer actively maintained (last release 2023). The Beaker pages remain for existing projects; new contracts should use the workflow above.

Next steps​