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Getting Started

This tutorial walks through the steps to initialize and interact with a Hydra Head using the kuber-hydra relay server and client libraries. We’ll demonstrate the process using two Hydra nodes—Alice and Bob—on the Cardano testnet.

1. Hydra Node Setup​

To set up a Hydra Head on the testnet, follow the official Hydra protocol tutorial: 👉 Hydra Head Protocol Documentation

In our example setup:

  • Alice's Hydra Node runs on 172.16.238.10:4001
  • Bob's Hydra Node runs on 172.16.238.20:4002

2. Kuber-Hydra Relay Server​

Repository​

Configuration​

Create a .env file with the following variables (example for Alice):

HYDRA_IP=172.16.238.10
HYDRA_PORT=4001
SERVER_PORT=8081
CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH=/path/to/cardano-node/preview/node.socket
NETWORK=2

The Kuber-Hydra relay API will be accessible at http://localhost:8081.

3. Kuber Client​

Example repository: kuber-client-example

Hydra Service Initialization​

Assuming that the hydra node is running and kuber-hdra server is started on localhost:8081, we can pass the host url to this class constructor to create the service:

import { KuberHydraService } from "kuber-client/service/kuberHydraService";

const hydraService = new KuberHydraService("http://localhost:8081");