This article applies to:

• Ethereum
• Polygon
• BNB Smart Chain
• Avalanche
• Fantom
• Harmony

Introduction

Hardhat can fork an EVM network and run a local simulated EVM node based on EthereumJS.

This can be especially useful if you want to interact with the complex decentralized finance (DeFi) contracts deployed on the EVM mainnet in a local simulated environment.

You need an archive node to fork the mainnet.

Step-by-step

Deploy an archive node with Chainstack

Deploy the node as described in Join a public network.

Get the HTTO endpoint of your deployed node as described in View node access and credentials. 

Install Hardhat

Run:

npm install hardhat

Fork the mainnet through the Chainstack node at the latest block

Run:

npx hardhat node --fork HTTPS_ENDPOINT

where HTTPS_ENDPOINT is your node HTTPS endpoint.

Example:

npx hardhat node --fork https://nd-123-456-789.p2pify.com/3c6e0b8a9c15224a8228b9a98ca1531

A forked mainnet node is now running locally and you can interact with it.

Fork the mainnet through the Chainstack node at a specific block

Run:

npx hardhat node --fork HTTPS_ENDPOINT --fork-block-number BLOCK_NUMBER

where

• HTTPS_ENDPOINT — your node HTTPS endpoint.
• BLOCK_NUMBER — the block number at which you want to fork.

Example:

npx hardhat node --fork https://nd-123-456-789.p2pify.com/3c6e0b8a9c15224a8228b9a98ca1531 --fork-block-number 8116664

A forked mainnet node is now running locally and you can interact with it.

See also:

• Using MetaMask with a Hardhat node
• Hardhat documentation

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Chainstack support by emailing support@chainstack.com or by submitting this form.