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Getting started

warning

This documentation covers the SDK that is compatible with version 0.11.3 of Category Labs' Monad node software. The source code for this version is available but it is not yet (as of 10/11/25) running on any public network or published in the upstream APT repositories, so this guide cannot yet be followed in its entirety.

If you would like to try the SDK, you can still follow the first two steps of the "Getting started" guide, which replays an "offline" capture of historical execution events and does not require a live node. To actually consume real-time data from the Monad blockchain, please check back soon or reach out to ken_category_labs on the Monad Developer Discord.

In this guide, we will:

  1. Compile an example program, which will involve building code with the execution event SDK as a dependency. The SDK is offered for both the C and Rust programming languages. Each language has its own guide, so follow the instructions for your language of choice
  2. Run the example program on some historical data, which prints ASCII representations of execution events to stdout
  3. Set up and run our own Monad node, so that we have a local execution process publishing real-time data
  4. Run the example program again, this time using our Monad node; this will again print execution events to stdout, but this time the source will be real-time data from our local node
Linux required, but with some macOS support

This guide has been tested on a clean Ubuntu 24.04 LTS install, but should work on any recent Linux distribution, although the names of the required packages might be different. The distribution will need to provide a recent enough C compiler, either gcc-13 or clang-19.

The first two steps of the guide, which involve looking at historical data instead of real-time data, will also work on a macOS installation that is configured for software development. This may make it easier for some developers to try out the SDK on a development workstation or laptop, without the need to set up a Linux host first.

Unlike the SDK, the Monad node itself only runs on Linux so the later steps of the guide -- which actually consume real-time data -- require a full Linux host running your own Monad node.