Quickstart

By the end of this page you will have a wallet, unlocked and answering you. It assumes you have finished Install and the wallet is running. Give it about five minutes.

Every command you send has to prove it is you, with your token. Rather than spelling out the path each time, set up a short alias:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
alias wallet='canonicalwallet --token-file ~/.canonical/operator.token'

From here on, the docs write wallet to mean exactly that. (Drop the alias into your shell profile so it sticks around.)

wallet --json status

You should get back something like:

{"data":{"account_count":0,"active_chain_id":"0x34622","api_version":22,"locked":true},"kind":"status"}

In plain terms, that says: no wallet yet (account_count: 0), nothing unlocked (locked: true), and you are pointed at a network called Chunknet (active_chain_id: "0x34622"). All three are normal for a fresh setup.

Make a mental note of that last one. Chunknet is a placeholder network — you will switch to a real one before sending anything (that comes later). If instead of this you got "connection refused," the wallet is not running; see Troubleshooting.

wallet wallet create

This hands you a 24-word recovery phrase, shows it once, and asks you to pick a password. Write the phrase down on paper now. It is the only thing that can bring your wallet back from the dead, and you will not be shown it again.

Creating does not unlock signing yet — on purpose. First prove you actually saved the phrase, then unlock:

wallet wallet verify-backup    # it asks you for a few specific words
wallet wallet unlock           # enter the password you just set
wallet accounts                # there is your first address

wallet --json status

Now you should see account_count: 1 and locked: false. You are live. The wallet re-locks itself after a stretch of inactivity — when that happens, just wallet wallet unlock again.

• A wallet with one address, its keys encrypted on your disk.
• A handful of ready-to-use networks (wallet chains list).
• Two tokens: the full-access one your alias uses, and a read-only one for agents.

Canonical comes with multisig switched on: every transaction needs two approvals, at least one from a human. Your fresh wallet has only one human in it, so a transfer will not go through yet — it will wait for a second approver. That is the wallet keeping its promise, not a bug.

Adding that second approver is a one-time setup, and it is the very first step of the next page.