Developing on test networks

Etherlink has an active test network named Etherlink Shadownet Testnet, or Shadownet for short. It runs on the Tezos Shadownet test network.

For technical details about Shadownet, see EVM network information and Michelson network information.

There is also the Previewnet test network, see below.

The old testnet, Ghostnet Testnet, has been decommissioned, and is no longer usable.

For more information about the Tezos test networks that Etherlink test networks run on, see Testing on testnets on docs.tezos.com.

Using test networks

In most cases, you can use a test network in place of Mainnet by using the RPC URL of an EVM node that is running on that test network. You can use the public RPC node for the network for a small number of transactions (because it has a rate limit), or you can run your own EVM node on the test network by following the instructions in Running an EVM node.

Then, use the RPC URL in transactions, as in this example, which uses the public RPC node for the Shadownet Testnet:

curl --request POST \
     --url https://node.shadownet.etherlink.com\
     --header 'accept: application/json' \
     --header 'content-type: application/json' \
     --data '
{
  "id": 1,
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "method": "eth_gasPrice"
}
'

Examples of using test networks are on other pages in this documentation.

Etherlink Previewnet

The Previewnet test network is a temporary testnet made available before the addition of the EVM interface to Etherlink, for developers trying to test Native Atomic Calls before Etherlink upgrade 7. Previewnet is still available for some time.