Terra Software Development with Python

The Terra Python Software Development Kit (SDK) is a library toolkit used for developing software to interact with the Terra blockchain. In this tutorial, you will learn how you can install the Terra Python SDK, as well as any necessary dependencies, and how you can carry out transactions utilizing this technology.

Requirements

The Terra Python SDK requires Python v3.7+.

Installation

1. The Terra Python SDK may be installed, preferably in a virtual environment, by running the following command in your terminal:

pip install -U terra_sdk

2. Run the following commands to clone the terra.py repository, enter the new directory and install all necessary dependencies:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/terra-money/terra.py.git
cd terra.py
pip install poetry
poetry update
poetry install

Usage Examples

The Terra Python SDK can be used to carry out a variety of transactions on the Terra blockchain. This tutorial covers how to sign and send transactions.

LocalTerra for Development & Testing

For testing your transactions, it is recommended that you install and run LocalTerra on your personal computer. Instructions on how to get LocalTerra up and running may be found in the LocalTerra Github repository. If you would rather test on a network similar to mainnet, the live Terra blockchain, then you may utilize testnet. However, you will be limited on the number of transactions that you may make per day. This is to protect computing resources from scripts that may spam the network. Once you are comfortable enough to make transactions on the live Terra blockchain, you may utilize mainnet to carry out transactions with your own assets.

Connecting to Your Wallet

In order to conduct transactions on Terra, you will need to be able to send requests to the underlying blockchain. This may be done via instantiating an LCDClient which can be used to communicate to the corresponding Terra Lite Client Daemon (LCD) node.

After you have instantiated your client to communicate with the appropriate network, you may initialize the wallet with which you would like to carry out transactions. On LocalTerra, you may pass in a name of a preconfigured testing wallet (test1-10), each of which contains more than adequate funds for testing purposes. On testnet or mainnet, you will need to pass in the mnemonic key associated with your wallet.

_{Warning: Carrying out transactions on testnet or mainnet require the use of your personal seed phrase or mnemonic key. This is an unencrypted private key that is generated and presented to you upon the creation of your personal wallet. Saving or utilizing this phrase on your personal computer may expose this private key to malicious actors who could gain access to your personal wallet if they are able to obtain it. You may create a wallet solely for testing purposes to eliminate risk. Use your mnemonic key at your own disgretion.}

LocalTerra

from terra_sdk.client.localterra import LocalTerra

# Create client to communicate with localterra.
terra = LocalTerra()

# Initialize preconfigured test wallet.
wallet = terra.wallets["test1"]

Testnet

from terra_sdk.key.mnemonic import MnemonicKey
from terra_sdk.client.lcd import LCDClient

# Create client to communicate with testnet.
terra = LCDClient(
    url="https://pisco-lcd.terra.dev/",
    chain_id="pisco-1"
)

# Initialize wallet with associated mnemonic key.
mk = MnemonicKey(mnemonic="<INSERT MNEMONIC KEY HERE>")
wallet = terra.wallet(mk)

Mainnet

from terra_sdk.key.mnemonic import MnemonicKey
from terra_sdk.client.lcd import LCDClient

# Create client to communicate with mainnet.
terra = LCDClient(
    url="https://phoenix-lcd.terra.dev",
    chain_id="phoenix-1"
)

# Initialize wallet with associated mnemonic key.
mk = MnemonicKey(mnemonic="<INSERT MNEMONIC KEY HERE>")
wallet = terra.wallet(mk)

Quick Note on Gas & Fees

All transactions on the blockchain will require some effort from computational resources in order to be processed and accepted. The computational work expended due to processing a transaction is quantified in units of gas.

Because the amount of gas needed may not be predetermined, the signer of the transaction must send the amount of gas that they would like to use along with the transaction. Fees are calculated by multiplying the gas amount specified in the transaction by either a user-specified price or by utilizing preset prices for each unit of gas. Current rates per unit of gas may be viewed on the gas rates FCD page.

Each request you will make to the blockchain will contain a message detailing your transaction along with parameters that will help estimate the gas fee. The estimated fee must be above the minimum fee required to process the request for the transaction to be accepted. If the fee is too small to fully complete the request, you may still be responsible for charges on the processing that was carried out before the transaction failed. Gas that is left unused after the transaction will not be refunded and larger estimated fee values will not translate to any benefits for the signer.

Testnet

import requests
import json

# Request current gas rates on testnet for future fee estimation.
gas_price_dict = requests.get("https://pisco-fcd.terra.dev/v1/txs/gas_prices").json()
gas_price_dict

Mainnet

import requests
import json

# Request current gas rates on mainnet for future fee estimation.
gas_price_dict = requests.get("https://phoenix-fcd.terra.dev/v1/txs/gas_prices").json()
gas_price_dict

{
  "uluna": "0.15",
}

_{Note: The "u" preceding the name of Terra's native token, Luna, is the unit symbol for micro. This means that the price is given in millionths of the corresponding cryptocurrency asset. For example, the "uluna": "0.15" entry corresponds to a 0.00000015 LUNA cost for each unit of gas expended per transaction.}

Signing and Sending Transactions

After initializing your LCDClient and wallet, you may try to carry out a simple transfer of funds. This involves initializing the addresses of your sender and receiver wallets, setting the relevant parameters to carry out the transaction, and creating, signing, and finally sending the request to the node for execution. In this example, you will be sending 1 Luna from your previously initialized wallet to another testing wallet, test2.

from terra_sdk.client.lcd.api.tx import CreateTxOptions
from terra_sdk.core.bank import MsgSend
from terra_sdk.core import Coins, Coin

# Initialize sender and recipient wallet addresses.
sender_address = wallet.key.acc_address
recipient_address = terra.wallets["test2"].key.acc_address

# Set relevant parameters for transaction.
tx_options = CreateTxOptions(
    msgs=[
        MsgSend(
            from_address=sender_address,
            to_address=recipient_address,
            amount=Coins([Coin("uluna", 1000000)])
        )
    ],
    gas="auto",
    gas_prices=Coins(gas_price_dict),
    gas_adjustment=1.5
)

# Create and sign transaction.
tx = wallet.create_and_sign_tx(options=tx_options)

# Broadcast the request for execution to the Terra node.
result = terra.tx.broadcast(tx)

After broadcasting the transaction to the Terra node, the result variable will hold all relevant information about your request, including if it was successfully completed or not. In the Jupyter Notebook files in this repository, you may utilize a helper function which will neatly present this information for you.

_{Note on Gas Estimation: In CreateTxOptions, the setting of the gas parameter to auto estimates the amount of gas that may be needed for processing the transaction. The gas_adjustment parameter allows for this value to be increased in order to meet the minimum gas requirement for processing if the estimated value is determined to be too small. In order to ensure acceptance of your transaction, this example sets this parameter to a value of 1.5. You may experiment with different parameter values to evaluate which configuration is best for you.}