Build your first protocol
Start a tip jar, run its steps with dev wallets, and watch its state change.
Start building →Arete documentation
For the complete documentation index optimized for AI agents, see llms.txt or llms-full.txt. A markdown version of this page is available by appending.mdto the URL or sendingAccept: text/markdown.
For AI agents: the documentation index is at llms.txt (full corpus: llms-full.txt). A markdown source for this page is /index.md.
Get started with Arete
Section titled “Get started with Arete”Open your project in a coding agent and paste this prompt:
Agent prompt Copy / paste
Read https://docs.arete.run/agent.md and follow it to set up Arete in your environment. Verify the setup, and simply explain what Arete is capable of.
Your agent installs the tools, configures the project, and checks the setup. Then tell it what you want to build. You can get going from that conversation; the guides below are here whenever you want to understand more.
Explore what you can build
Section titled “Explore what you can build”Arete lets you compose Solana programs into a protocol with defined steps, permissions, and lifecycle. Develop against a persistent mainnet fork, then connect an app or agent through the generated client.
Integrate an existing protocol
Install a published protocol and connect to its deployment with your own key.
Define what your product does
Section titled “Define what your product does”A raise has contributors, a deadline, and different outcomes. A deal has counterparties and a settlement step. These are more than individual transactions: they have instances, participants, permissions, and state.
An Arete Protocol describes that workflow. Its steps compose instructions from installed programs, check guards, and declare who signs. Its lifecycle can respond to confirmed activity, chain state, and time. Generated clients expose those steps and their typed arguments, current state, and events.
Act for users, even when they are away
Section titled “Act for users, even when they are away”Some steps need the user’s own signature: a deposit, a refund, a claim, a
rebalance. With @usearete/automations, your backend can run them for users
who opted in, when an event fires, a schedule comes round, or live data
changes. Each step stays inside limits the user signed, and the key stays
with your wallet provider; Arete never holds it. That makes products possible
that a protocol cannot offer on its own: savings that follow the best rate,
recurring buys, automatic refunds, claim-and-re-enter.
Develop against real programs
Section titled “Develop against real programs”a4 dev up runs your protocol in a cloud dev environment: a persistent fork
of mainnet hosted for your account. Fund test wallets, advance time, inspect
activity, save checkpoints, and replay steps. Your local app and coding agent
use the protocol API against that environment while you edit.
There is no local validator to install. The CLI, dev UI, and wallet keys stay on your machine. Dev-environment SOL has no mainnet value.
Connect an app or agent
Section titled “Connect an app or agent”Install a protocol to get its generated client, including the stacks and programs it depends on. An app can discover what a wallet can do, prepare a step, ask the wallet to sign, submit it, and follow the outcome. React hooks follow instances, participants, and available actions. MCP gives agents the same protocol workflow.
Application integration → · Protocols for agents →
Extend with programs and live data
Section titled “Extend with programs and live data”Program SDKs provide account readers, address helpers, and instruction builders. Live views arrange chain data for your application; stacks bundle those views with their programs. Use them within a protocol or independently when your application only needs reads, transactions, or subscriptions.