Developing smart contracts with IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tools

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The IBM® Blockchain Platform Developer Tools provide an environment within Visual Studio Code or Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces for developing, packaging, and testing smart contracts. You can use the tools to create your smart contract project and get started developing your business logic. You can then use the tools to test your smart contract either on your local machine by using a preconfigured instance of Hyperledger Fabric, or by connecting to an IBM Blockchain Platform network, before you deploy the smart contract to the IBM Blockchain Platform. This tutorial describes how to install and use the Developer Tools.

The IBM Blockchain Platform extension works seamlessly with any instance of the IBM Blockchain Platform that uses Hyperledger Fabric versions 1.4 and later. This tutorial is oriented toward users of the high-level Fabric smart contract programming model. If you are using low-level smart contract APIs, you can find additional instructions in the IBM Blockchain Platform extension documentation. For more information, see the Writing Your First Chaincode tutorial in the Fabric documentation.

Before you begin

The IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tools can be installed as a VS Code extension on your local system, or if you have a Red Hat OpenShift cluster, it can be deployed into a Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces 2.1 or higher. Both options use the exact same tooling but the Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces provide a developer workspace server and cloud IDE. The option that you choose largely depends on whether you prefer to develop locally or collaborate with a development team in a cloud-integrated development environment (IDE).

What are the benefits of CodeReady Workspaces?

If you are an existing Red Hat OpenShift customer, CodeReady Workspaces are available at no cost with an OpenShift subscription and can be accessed by joining the Red Hat developer program. Built on the open Eclipse Che project, Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces use Kubernetes and containers to provide any member of the development or IT team with a consistent, secure, and preconfigured development environment. The user experience is as fast and familiar as the IDE on their laptop.

Browser interface
The CodeReady Workspaces use the IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tools to build a repeatable workspace that is designed for development teams to collaborate on smart contract or client applications. Instead of the tooling running on your local machine, it runs in an OpenShift cluster and is accessible through a web browser. It includes the same benefits of running the tooling locally including access to tutorials and samples, as well as the syntax highlighting and code completion that you expect from the IDE.

Collaboration
Teams of developers can work in the same shareable preconfigured environment. Onboarding new developers is streamlined as they avoid spending time configuring a local development environment and can get started quickly.

Restricted teams
This option is beneficial to customers who operate in highly regulated spaces and cannot download tooling locally, allowing them to maintain a secure development environment.

Familiar development experience
The workspace uses the open source Eclipse Theia IDE that serves as the editor component of the CodeReady Workspaces, and includes all of the popular packages, tools, and utilities similar to VS Code and supports VS Code extensions. The workspace is also preconfigured with the prerequisite tooling that is required by the IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tooling and can be customized for your development team, such as version control so that you can import projects from GitHub.

CodeReady Workspaces are included with the IBM Cloud Pak for Applications.

Current limitations of the CodeReady Workspaces

While the IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tooling that runs in the CodeReady Workspaces is exactly the same experience as when you run on your local system, the following features will not work in the CodeReady Workspaces and are not currently supported. Bi-weekly updates to the tooling are planned to address these features.

Creation of a local Fabric network from a template (one organization, or two organizations)

If you want to deploy and test your smart contracts, instead of using a local Fabric network, you can build an IBM Blockchain Platform network outside of Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces, and then use the Add Environment command to import it into the IBM Blockchain Platform extension. Detailed steps are included later in this topic.
If you plan to work on Go smart contracts, you need to configure the Go extension to the editor in your developer workspace.

Choose your Developer Tooling environment

Install Developer Tooling into Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces in the cloud. Install the IBM Blockchain Platform VS Code extension into Visual Studio on your local system.

Both development environments include the same rich functionality of the IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tooling. The Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces include the pre-installed stack of prerequisites to get up and running quickly in an IDE that is accessible from your web browser. Choose VS Code extension from the VisualStudio Marketplace if you prefer to develop smart contracts and applications locally. You will need to download, install, and configure everything on your local system.

Install Developer Tooling into Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces

The following set of steps can be used to install the CodeReady Workspaces and configure it with the IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tooling on an OpenShift 4.3+ cluster. If you prefer to install the tooling on your local system, see Install IBM Blockchain Platform VS Code extension.

Log in as the administrator of your OpenShift 4.3 cluster.
In the navigation bar, click Operators > Operator Hub. Ensure you have selected the project from the twistie at the top of the page, where you want the operator to be installed.
Search for CodeReady Workspaces and then, click Install.
When the operator is successfully installed, it is visible from the Installed Operators tab and the status is Succeeded.
From the table of Installed Operators, click Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces > CodeReady Workspaces cluster.
Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces are based on the open Eclipse Che project that uses Kubernetes and containers to provide any member of a development or IT team with a consistent, secure, and zero-configuration development environment. Click Create CheCluster.
It takes several minutes for the CheCluster creation to complete. When it is ready, there are two URLs visible in the CheCluster Details Overview tab:
- CodeReady Workspaces URL - used to access the workspace.
- Red Hat SSO Admin Console URL - used to manage the users that are allowed to interact with the workspace.
Click the CodeReady Workspaces URL and log in. You are asked to provide a Username that is used to form the name of the workspace, along with your Email address.

To avoid errors when creating the custom workspace in the next step, do not include any special characters in the Username.
Click Create a Custom Workspace and then click IMPORT DEVFILE. CodeReady Workspaces use Devfiles to describe the contents of a developer workspace. When you want to use CodeReady Workspaces with the IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tooling, you need to bring several components into your Devfile. Specifically, you need to add the Developer Tooling as a chePlugin by including it in your list of components. The following .yaml file represents a minimal Devfile for using the IBM Blockchain Platform extension with CodeReady Workspaces:
```
---
apiVersion: 1.0.0
metadata:
    name: ibp-sample-devfile
  components:
- type: cheEditor
  id: eclipse/che-theia/latest
  alias: theia-editor
  memoryLimit: 1024M
- type: chePlugin
  reference: https://github.com/IBM-Blockchain/blockchain-vscode-extension/releases/latest/download/ibm-blockchain-platform-che.yaml
  alias: ibm-blockchain-platform
```
Where:
- metadata: is the name that is given to the workspace. In this example, it is ibp-sample-devfile. Users should specify their own value for this property.
- components: - type: cheEditor is the default Eclipse Theia editor that is automatically included in the CodeReady Workspaces and is not a required component in a Devfile. However, the IBM Blockchain Platform extension requires a higher memory limit than the default, so it must be included along with the memoryLimit property to override the defaults.
- components: - type: chePlugin is the reference to the IBM Blockchain Platform VS Code extension. The sample includes a reference to the latest version of our extension by using a URL from GitHub: https://github.com/IBM-Blockchain/blockchain-vscode-extension/releases/latest/download/ibm-blockchain-platform-che.yaml. This means that whenever the workspace starts or restarts, the latest version of our extension is installed. It is expected that updates are published to the extension every two weeks.
If you prefer to pin your workspace to a specific version of the VS Code extension, go to the GitHub Releases page and navigate to the URL for the version you prefer. Scroll down to the Assets twistie for that release to locate a set of files. Copy the URL for the file named ibm-blockchain-platform-che-x.y.z.yaml, for example ibm-blockchain-platform-che-1.0.31.yaml. The URL should look similar to: https://github.com/IBM-Blockchain/blockchain-vscode-extension/releases/download/v1.0.31/ibm-blockchain-platform-che-1.0.31.yaml. Paste this URL into the reference field, replacing the URL provided in the sample.

This file can be further customized according to your developer environment needs, for example to check out Hyperledger Fabric samples from GitHub. Learn more about Devfiles in the Red Hat documentation.
Click the YAML tile, and paste the edited sample into the YAML box. Then, click Create & Open. It takes several minutes for the workspace to load. After it loads successfully, click the blockchain icon to launch the Developer Tooling.

Next steps

An additional benefit of the CodeReady Workspaces is that after your workspace is up and running and you want to share it with a colleague, you can use the Factories feature to create a template for the workspace and share the factory via a URL. Read more about how to use Factories in the CodeReady Workspaces documentation.

Proceed to Step one to learn how to access the tutorials.

Reference

Install IBM Blockchain Platform VS Code extension for free

Before you install the IBM Blockchain Platform VS Code extension on your local system, you must complete the prerequisites. If you have already configured the Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces for your developer environment, you can skip ahead to Step one to get started with the tooling.

Prerequisites

Windows 10, Linux, or Mac OS are currently the supported operating systems.
VS Code version 1.40 or greater.
Docker version v17.06.2-ce or greater.
If you are developing Go smart contracts, you need to install Go version v1.12 or greater. Note that if you are using Fabric v2.x, you will need Go version v1.13 or higher instead.
If you are developing Node smart contracts, you need to install Node ^10.15.3 or ^12.15.0 and npm v6.x or greater.

Considerations if you are developing Java smart contracts:

Java 11 is required to execute Java smart contracts.
Gradle v4.x is used to build Java smart contracts.
Custom Gradle versions can be used by using a Gradle wrapper.
Java smart contracts must use fabric-chaincode-shim at v1.4.6 or later (if deploying on a peer that uses a Fabric 1.4.x image; peers that use a Fabric 2.x image do not require a shim), as this version is the first version that includes support for Java 11.
For an example of a Java smart contract, see the Basic asset transfer smart contract.

If you are using Windows, you also must ensure the following:

Docker for Windows is configured to use Linux containers (by default).
You installed the C++ Build Tools for Windows from windows-build-tools.
You installed OpenSSL v1.0.2 if you are working with smart contracts that use Fabric v1.4 dependencies and want to run the generated functional tests.
- Install the normal version, not the version marked as "light".
- Install the Win64 version into C:\OpenSSL-Win64 on 64-bit systems.

If you installed Node and npm by using a manager such as 'nvm' or 'nodenv', you need to set the default or global version. You can then restart VS Code for the version to be detected by the Prerequisites page.

Install the extension

Ensure that you are running VS Code version 1.40 or greater.
Go to the Visual Studio Code extension marketplace page or search for IBM Blockchain Platform in the extensions panel within Visual Studio Code.
Click Install.
If you are upgrading the extension, you will need to restart VS Code to complete installation of the extension.

After the installation, you can use the IBM Blockchain icon on the left side of VS Code to open the IBM Blockchain Platform panel.

The extension also adds new commands to the Visual Studio Code command palette. You can use the command palette to complete many of the operations that are explained in details in this guide.

Step one: Guided tutorials in VS Code

The IBM Blockchain Platform Developer Tooling includes guided tutorials to help you get started. The tutorials provide step-by-step instructions on how to develop and test your smart contract project, as well has how to deploy the smart contract to a network on IBM Cloud. You also can find sample smart contracts that are available for you to download.

To navigate to the tutorials from within VS Code, click the blockchain icon in the left navigation and then click the IBM Blockchain Platform icon at the upper right corner to view the extension homepage. On the homepage, you can find a link to the tutorials gallery and the sample smart contracts.

Step two: Create a smart contract project

You can use the extension to create a new smart contract project in Visual Studio Code. The extension creates a basic smart contract that manages an example asset in the language of your choice. You can use the structure of the example as a starting point for developing your own business logic. The extension provides all the dependencies that are required to deploy your smart contract to an instance of Hyperledger Fabric.

Click the IBM Blockchain icon to open the IBM Blockchain tab. Click the overflow menu in the smart contracts pane and click Create New Project.
Select the smart contract type to generate. The Default Contract example is recommended for first-time users and demonstrates how to perform create, read, update, and delete operations to the public ledger that's shared by all network members. The Private Data Contract example demonstrates how to perform create, read, update, delete, and verify operations to a collection, that is private to a single network member.
Select the language that you want to create a smart contract in. The current options are JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, and Java. Note: If you are deploying the smart contracts to a production network, JavaScript and TypeScript smart contracts require more resources than contracts written in Go.
Select an asset to be managed by the example contract. For example, bond.
Create a folder with the name of your project and open it.
Select how to open your new project. The project folder should now open.

When the project opens, you can find the new smart contract in the explorer window in the left pane. The structure of the project depends on the language that you selected. However, each smart contract contains the same elements:

The source code of the smart contract. If you selected to create a JavaScript or TypeScript contract, the extension builds a basic smart contract by using the fabric-contract-api with a series of functions that manage your example asset. For example, if you selected bond, you can find the functions of createBond, updateBond, readBond, bondExists, and deleteBond.
A test file.
The accompanying smart contract dependencies.

Do I need to update my smart contract for Fabric v2.x?

Although support for Fabric 2.0 networks was added to the platform, you can still run your existing smart contracts on your peers that run a v1.4 image on a channel with an application capability level of 1.4 or lower. Should you later decide to upgrade your peer to a v2.x image and update your channel application capability level to 2.0, you may need to update your existing smart contract. However, after you upgrade your peer image to v2.x and channel application capability v2.x, there is no longer a way to update the original smart contract. Instead, when an update is required, you need to repackage the smart contract in the new .tar.gz or .tgz format using v2 of the VS Code extension and then propose the definition to the channel using the new smart contract lifecycle process.

Review the following considerations:

Node

If your smart contract was written in Node, then you might need to update it. By default, a Fabric v1.4 peer will create a Node v8 runtime, and a Fabric v2.x peer creates a Node v12 runtime. In order for a smart contract to work with Node v12 runtime, the fabric-contract-api and fabric-shim node modules must be at v1.4.5 or greater. If you are using a smart contract that was originally written to work with Fabric 1.4, update the Node modules by running the following command before deploying the smart contract on a Fabric v2.x peer. See Support and Compatibility for fabric-chaincode-node for more information.

npm install --save fabric-contract-api@latest-1.4 fabric-shim@latest-1.4

Because Fabric v2.x peers do not have a "shim" (the external dependencies that allowed smart contracts to run on earlier versions of Fabric), you need to vendor the shim and then repackage any smart contracts written in Golang (Go) that use the Go SDK. "Vendoring the shim" effectively means that you are copying the dependencies into your project. Without this vendoring and repackaging, the Go smart contract cannot run on a peer using a Fabric 2.x image. If you are using the IBM Developer Tools to develop and package your smart contract, the tooling performs the vendoring for you. This process is not required for smart contracts that are written in Java or Node.js, nor for Go smart contracts that use the Go contract-api.

Java
The build.gradle file for the smart contract must be updated:

If the smart contract uses the shadowjar 2.x plugin, then it should be updated to version 5 by using the following code:
```
plugins {
    id 'com.github.johnrengelman.shadow' version '5.1.0'
    id 'java'
}
```

The repositories section of the file must contain the maven URL for jitpack, for example:

    repositories {
    ...
    maven {
        url 'https://jitpack.io'
    }
}

Init functions

If the smart contract was written using the low-level APIs provided by the Fabric Chaincode Shim API, your smart contract needs to contain an Init function that is used to initialize the chaincode. This function is required by the smart contract interface, but does not necessarily need to be invoked by your applications. Because you cannot use the console to deploy a smart contract that contains an Init function, you need to move that initialization logic into the smart contract itself and call it separately. For example, the smart contract can use a reserved key to check whether the smart contract has already been initialized or not. If not, then call the initialization logic, otherwise proceed as usual. If your smart contract needs to include the Init function, the only way to deploy it is by using the Fabric peer lifecycle chaincode install command or the IBM Blockchain Platform collection for Ansible. You can also refer to the Fabric documentation for more details on how to use an Init function with the Fabric chaincode lifecycle.

Repackage smart contract

After you have updated your smart contract, use v2 of the VS Code extension to repackage your smart contract.

Step three: Package a smart contract

You need to package a smart contract before you can install it on your IBM Blockchain Platform network or the preconfigured Hyperledger Fabric network. Fabric V1 channels require smart contract packages to be in the .cds format, and V2 require the .tar.gz format. Complete the following steps to package your smart contract:

Open your smart contract project in VS Code by clicking File and then click Open .... You can also click Open Workspace if you saved your project as a workspace. Ensure that you have the smart contract project open in the file viewer.
Click the IBM Blockchain icon to open the IBM Blockchain tab.
In the Smart Contracts pane, click the overflow menu and select Package Open Project. You are asked for the name of the package and the version. You will also need to select whether you want to package it as a .tar.gz (for deploying to a channel with V2 application capability) or .cds (for deploying to a channel with V1 application capability). To find out the channel capabibilities/version, hover your mouse over the channel in the Fabric Environments panel that you wish to deploy to. This will display a tooltip containing the channel capabilities.
- If you have one smart contract project, it is packaged automatically and be displayed in the Smart Contracts pane.
- If you have multiple smart contract folders open, you are asked which one to package.
- If you have no smart contract folders open, you get an error message.

If you want to control which files in the project are packaged, you can create a .fabricignore file in the top-level directory of your smart contract project. The file and pattern format for a .fabricignore file is the same as a .gitignore file, for example:

/.classpath
/.git/
/.gradle/
/.project
/.settings/
/bin/
/build/

Exporting, importing, and deleting a smart contract package

After you package a smart contract project, you can export it from VS Code:

In the IBM Blockchain Platform extension panel, right-click the smart contract package and select Export Package.
Choose the directory to save your smart contract package file and click Export.

You can also import an existing smart contract package into the IBM Blockchain Platform pane:

In the Smart Contracts pane, click the overflow menu and select Import a Package.
Browse to the smart contract package that you want to import, and click Import.

You can also click Delete Package to remove the smart contract package from the list of packages.

Step four: Deploy a smart contract to a preconfigured Hyperledger Fabric network

You can use the VS Code extension to deploy your smart contract to a preconfigured Hyperledger Fabric network that the extension creates on your local machine. If you are deploying to a V1 capability enabled channel, you need to install and instantiate your smart contract. If you are deploying to a V2 capability enabled channel that uses the new Fabric 2.x lifecycle process, you need to install then "approve" and "commit" a smart contract, as opposed to instantiating it.

This option to deploy a smart contract to a preconfigured network is currently not available if you are running your developer environment from Red Hat CodeReady Workspaces. Instead, you can use an existing IBM Blockchain Platform network. See the instructions in Step seven to connect to that network.

Deploying a preconfigured Hyperledger Fabric network

Before you can deploy a smart contract, use the following steps to deploy the preconfigured network:

Ensure that Docker is running on your machine.
Open the IBM Blockchain Platform tab in VS Code.
In the Fabric Environments pane, click 1 Org Local Fabric. If Docker is running, the local instance should be started once the Hyperledger Fabric images are downloaded.
Click 1 Org Local Fabric - Org1 Gateway in the Fabric Gateways pane to connect to the local network.

The VS Code extension creates a basic Fabric network that includes one orderer, one peer, and one certificate authority. The peer is joined to a channel named mychannel. You can find the list of nodes, organizations, and channels that belong to the network in the Fabric Environments pane. Above these nodes, you can find the list of smart contracts that are deployed on your channels.

Use the following steps to create a new one organization or two organization network:

Ensure that Docker is running on your machine.
Hover your mouse over the Fabric Environments pane and click +, Add Environment.
Select Create new from template.
Select 1 Org template (1 CA, 1 peer, 1 channel). Alternatively, if you want a larger network or have generated a Private Data Contract then select 2 Org template (2 CAs, 2 peers, 1 channel).
Select V2_0 when asked to choose the channel capability version to use for the network. Alternatively, if you wish to have v1 channel capabilities select the other option.

This will then take a few minutes to create a local Fabric network including the environment, gateways, and wallets.

Stopping, restarting, tearing down and deleting a preconfigured network

You can stop or restart the preconfigured network while it is running:

In the Fabric Environments pane, click the overflow menu.
Select Restart, Stop, Teardown to stop, restart, or teardown the container.

Selecting Teardown will completely remove the local Fabric network. Note: This removal results in the loss of the ledger and world state data.

Selecting Delete will perform a Teardown as well as remove the network from the Fabric Environments pane.

Deploying your smart contract (channel application capability V2)

Smart contracts can be deployed by using the deploy view. This view handles all the deployment steps (install, approve, commit) which are required by the smart contract lifecycle on channels that are enabled with application capability v2.0 or higher.

Follow these steps if you have your channel is configured with application capability V2 or higher and a .tar.gz smart contract package.

To launch the deploy view:

Check that you are connected to the network in the Fabric Environments pane.
Expand the channel that you want to deploy your smart contract to.
Click + Deploy smart contract.

There are three steps to deploying a smart contract by using the deploy view.

Step 1: Choose a smart contract to deploy

Use the dropdown to select the smart contract package that you want to deploy.
Click Next to proceed.

Step 2: Create definition

Provide a name and a version for the smart contract in the appropriate input fields. By default these parameters will be filled by the name and version of the package.
(Optional) Enter a custom endorsement policy in the appropriate input field.
(Optional) Select Add file to browse to your collection configuration file if your smart contract uses private data, such as the Private Data Contract example.
Click Next to proceed.

Step 3: Deploy

Click Deploy to automatically install, approve, and commit the smart contract on all of the networks peers.
(Optional) Use the Perform commit toggle to enable or disable committing this smart contract definition to the channel.
(Optional) Click Additional peers to endorse commit transactions to select or deselect any available additional peers that you need to approve this smart contract definition.

At this point, you smart contract is now "committed" on the channel. If you have changed your smart contract code and then repackaged it, you can use the deploy view and follow the same steps as above to upgrade the smart contract definition that you have deployed to the network.

Deploying your smart contract (channel application capability V1)

Follow these steps if you have a channel that is configured with the application capability v1.x and a smart contract package that is in .cds format.

To launch the deploy view:

Check that you are connected to the network in the Fabric Environments pane.
Expand the channel that you want to deploy your smart contract to.
Click + Deploy smart contract.

There are three steps to deploying a smart contract using the deploy view.

Step 1: Choose a smart contract to deploy

Use the dropdown to select the smart contract package that you want to deploy.
Click Next to proceed.

Step 2: Configure smart contract deployment

(Optional) Enter a custom endorsement policy in the appropriate input field.
(Optional) Select Add file to browse to your collection configuration file if your smart contract uses private data, such as the Private Data Contract example.
Click Next to proceed.

Step 3: Deploy

Click Deploy to automatically install and instantiate (or upgrade) the smart contract on all of the networks peers.
(Optional) Enter the function name to call on instantiation/upgrade.
(Optional) Enter the function arguments to call on instantiation/upgrade.

At this point, you smart contract is now instantiated on the channel. If you have changed your smart contract code and then repackaged it, you can use the deploy view and follow the same steps as above to upgrade the smart contract that you have deployed to the network.

Interacting with your smart contract

After a smart contract is deployed to a channel, you can submit transactions to the functions inside your smart contract by using the Fabric Gateways pane:

Ensure that your smart contract is deployed to a channel, and that you are connected to the network.
In the Fabric Gateways pane, expand the Channels dropdown. Click the channel that the smart contract is instantiated or committed on.
Expand the smart contract that you want to interact with. You can find the list of transactions that are listed beneath your smart contract.
Right-click the transaction to submit, and select Submit Transaction. For example, if you created and packaged the example bonds smart contract, click createBond.
Enter any arguments that the transaction requires, and press Enter. For example, enter ["bond01","100"] to create your first bond.
(Optional) Enter any arguments that will be submitted as transient data. Transient data is not stored on the channel ledger in order to keep the data private.

Connecting your applications to the preconfigured network

You can test your client applications by connecting them to the preconfigured network and submitting transactions to your smart contract.

First, you need to export your connection profile:

Ensure that the network is running in the Fabric Environments pane.
Right-click on the gateway in the Fabric Gateways panel and select Export Connection Profile.

You can then use the Fabric SDKs and the connection profile to enroll your admin identity by using the username admin and the password adminpw. You can then use this identity to invoke your smart contract or register and enroll additional users.

Step five: Test a deployed smart contract

You can generate tests for smart contracts that are instantiated or committed on the channels that you connect to. The tests can be generated as either JavaScript or TypeScript for Node projects, Java for Java projects, or Go for Go projects. Generated tests can then be run or debugged.

Ensure that the smart contract is instantiated or committed on the channel.
In the Fabric Gateways pane, right-click the smart contract under the list of channels to generate tests for.
Select Generate Smart Contract Tests.
Select the language for the test file, either JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, or Go, depending on the smart contract language. The IBM Blockchain Platform extension installs the required dependencies and builds the test file.
Make sure you have either the Node Test Runner extension, Java Test Runner extension or Go extension installed.

After the test file is built, the tests can be run by clicking the Run Tests button in the file.

Step six: Connect to your IBM Blockchain Platform network

You can also use the extension to interact with your network on the IBM Blockchain Platform.

Invoke a smart contract that has been instantiated or committed on your channels

You can download your connection profile from the IBM Blockchain Platform console to build a gateway in the Fabric Gateways pane. You can then use the gateway to invoke the smart contracts that were deployed on your channel.

Open the IBM Blockchain Platform console that is associated with your instance of the IBM Blockchain Platform. Navigate to the Organizations tab and click the Organization MSP tile for the organization that your client application will interact with. Click Create connection profile to open a side panel that allows you to build and download your connection profile to your local file system. Then, create an application identity by using your CA and save the enrollID and secret. Use the following steps to connect to the IBM Blockchain Platform from VS Code.

Open the IBM Blockchain Platform tab.
Hover your mouse over the Fabric Gateways pane and click +.
Choose Create a gateway from a connection profile.
Enter a name for the connection.
Enter the fully qualified file path of your connection profile. Your connection should now appear in the connections list underneath 1 Org Local Fabric.
Hover your mouse over the Fabric Wallets pane and click +.
Choose Create a new wallet and add an identity from the options. Provide a name for your wallet and your identity.
Enter the MSP ID of your organization.
Click Select a gateway and provide an enrollment ID and secret option and choose the gateway that you created above.
Enter the enrollID and secret of the application identity that you created with the console. A new identity is created in the Fabric Wallets pane.
You can now connect to your instance of your IBM Blockchain Platform network. Click the connection name and select the name of the wallet that you created. You can also associate the wallet that you created with the gateway by right-clicking the gateway and selecting Associate A Wallet. This allows the connection to use the same wallet each time when it connects.

After you connect to the IBM Blockchain Platform from VS Code, you can see the list of channels joined by your organization peers under the gateway. Under each channel, you can see the list of smart contracts that are instantiated or committed on each channel and the transactions within each smart contract. You can submit transactions to your network by right-clicking a function and selecting Submit Transaction and passing the required arguments. You can also generate a test file for the smart contracts that are instantiated on your channels.

Deploy a smart contract from VS Code

You can also import the IBM Blockchain Platform network into the Fabric Environments pane of the extension. You can then use the extension to deploy smart contracts on your network.

You can export nodes from your console and then import them from another console. You can use the same process to export nodes from your console and then import them into the Fabric Environments pane. The easiest way is to use the extension to automatically discover the console and import the nodes.

Navigate to the Settings tab in the left navigation. You can see a section that is called Bulk data management that contains two buttons. The Export button opens a panel on the right.
Check the box to export your identities. You can deselect the other options.
Click Export to download the identities to your local file system in .zip file. Extract the file when the download is complete.

You can then import the nodes of your network into the extension.

Importing from IBM Cloud

Hover your mouse over the Fabric Environments pane and click +, Add Environment.
Select Add an IBM Blockchain Platform environment.
Select Yes when asked whether to connect to an IBM Blockchain Platform service instance on IBM Cloud.
Select Log in with username and password or another method.
Enter your IBM Cloud username (email address).
Enter your IBM Cloud password.
The extension will now try to discover any IBM Blockchain Platform service instances - if you have multiple, select the instance to import.
Enter a name for your environment.
Select the CAs and peers that belong to your organization, along with the ordering nodes of your channels, click OK when done.

Importing from a Kubernetes cluster not in IBM Cloud

Hover your mouse over the Fabric Environments pane and click +, Add Environment.
Select Add an IBM Blockchain Platform environment.
Select No when asked whether to connect to an IBM Blockchain Platform service instance on IBM Cloud.
Enter the URL of the IBM Blockchain Platform Console software instance.
Enter the User ID for the console instance.
Enter the Password for the console instance.
Select Proceed without certificate verification, or Cancel if you're planning to add the CA certificates to the operating systems trusted CA certificate store.
Enter a name for your environment.
Select the CAs and peers that belong to your organization, along with the ordering nodes of your channels, click OK when done.

In steps 5 and 6, you can alternatively enter an API key and secret that you generate using the IBM Blockchain Platform REST APIs.

You also need to import your admin identities into the wallet pane and associate them with your nodes. You need to associate an admin identity with your peers, CA, and an ordering node before you can connect with your network.

Click on the environment that you created in the Fabric Environments pane.
You can see an Alert sign next to the peer and ordering node. Click on the alert to associate an admin identity with the node.
Select Add a new wallet.
Select Create a new wallet.
Enter a name for your wallet to identify the orderer or peer admin of your network.
Select Add a new identity.
Enter name for your peer or orderer admin identity.
Select Provide a JSON identity file from the IBM Blockchain Platform and then browse to the admin identity that you exported from your console. If the identity is the administrator of multiple nodes in your network, you can associate the identity with multiple nodes.

When you have associated an admin identity with your peers, CA, and an ordering node, you can connect to your network and use the extension to deploy smart contracts.

Adding wallets and users

Use the following steps to create a new wallet by using a certificate and private key:

Hover your mouse over the Fabric Wallets pane and click +.
Choose to Create a new wallet and add an identity from the options. Provide a name for your wallet and your identity.
Enter the MSP ID of your organization.
Choose to add a certificate and private key.
If you use a certificate and private key, browse to the certificate and private key.

You can also add new users to the wallets that have already been created:

In the Fabric Wallets pane, right-click a wallet and select Add Identity.
Provide a name for the identity and an MSP ID.
You can upload a JSON file, provide a certificate and private key, or provide an enrollment ID and secret.
- If you are connecting to a network on the IBM Blockchain Platform, you can download an identity from your IBM Blockchain console, either by exporting an identity from your wallet or by enrolling and then exporting an identity using your Certificate Authority. You can then upload the JSON file directly to VS Code.
- If you use a certificate and private key, browse to the certificate and private key.
- If you use an enrollment ID and secret, choose the gateway to enroll with and enter the enrollment ID and secret.