Deploy a smart contract and mint an NFT

If you just want to mint an NFT, and sell it under the Bitski shared or individual contract on the Bitski Marketplace, head over to the Creator Portal. If you’re creating your own NFT-focused dApp, using the APIs, you’re in the right place. This guide works in conjunction with the recipes available on the Bitski docs site. A link to each recipe can be found in the corresponding section. In writing this guide, Python 3.10.2 was used. Verify that you have the requests library installed for Python 3.10 before getting started. If you’re unsure, run the following shell command:

pip3 install requests

Each section in this guide (beginning with “Getting an access token”) is performed as an API request. Upon success, a response is returned that contains information necessary for the next step. There are a few of these pieces of information that you’ll need to keep track of throughout this guide (and working with the blockchain in general). They are:

If you lose track of your token template ID, you can go to its page in the Creator Portal and look at the URL. It contains your app and token template IDs in the following format:

https://creator.bitski.com/app/[APP ID]/products/[TOKEN TEMPLATE ID]/edit

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API Request Response Codes

Whether or not your API request is successful, the response will carry a code. A successful request response carries a code beginning with 2 (200 or 201). If using the requests library with Python, the output from json.response() will contain additional information.

Here are some of the error codes you may encounter, what they mean, and how you can resolve them.

Response codes 401 and 403 represent an authentication error. Early in the process, this likely means that your app ID and client ID have not yet been authenticated. If you’re seeing either of these when attempting to deploy a contract or mint a token, make sure that you have billing set up in your account.

Any other response code that starts with a 4 will likely mean an incorrect request was sent. Common scenarios include forgetting or misspelling a query parameter, which will result in a 404.

Response codes beginning with a 5 represent a server error. In these instances, check with support either via sales@bitski.com or on the Bitski Discord server.

If you attempt to mint a token and are told that something has gone wrong, make sure that the contract under which you’re attempting to mint is on the Ethereum mainnet. Currently, contracts on Rinkeby cannot mint tokens (though you can begin the process of token template creation via script).

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Creating your app

1. Sign into the Developer Portal, and click the New App button in the upper right corner.
2. Name your app. Optionally, enter the URL for your app’s homepage, and assign it to an organization (if applicable). Click Create app.
3. Click the Bitski icon in the upper left to return to your list of apps.
4. Click on your app’s name. In the Overview section, you’ll find your app’s ID (labeled “Client ID”). Copy this, as you’ll need it later in this guide.

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Credentials

You’ll need backend credentials to get an auth token to sign transactions.

1. Still on your app’s page in the Developer Portal, click Credentials in the left column.
2. Click New Credential in the upper right.
3. A popup appears with your newly created credentials. At the bottom, click Download Credentials to receive a JSON file containing your Client ID and Secret. This popup is the only chance you’ll have to access your client secret. It’s important that you download the file or record your client details before closing the window. If you miss it, you can generate a new secret.
4. You’re ready to get authenticated, so that you can request an access token.

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Authentication

Also known as an auth token (not to be confused with a Non-Fungible Token), this grants access to Bitski’s APIs. Each lasts for about 6 hours before a new one needs to be generated due to security requirements.

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Getting an access token

1. Launch your Python IDE and create a new script.
2. Copy the code from the access token recipe below into your Python IDE.

1. Copy the client ID and secret from your credentials JSON file to the corresponding variables CLIENT_ID (line 5 in the recipe code) and CLIENT_SECRET (line 6) in your Python script.

In the JSON file:

`{ "client": { "id": "[my client id]", "secret": "[my client secret]" } } `

In your Python script:

`CLIENT_ID = "[my client id]" CLIENT_SECRET = "[my client secret]" `

1. Save and run your script. If successful, you should get a response like the following. The token has been removed here, but it’s a long string consisting of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, underscores and periods.

Token granted successfully: True access token: [removed]

1. Copy this token, as you’ll need it in the next step.

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Set up your contract

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Configure your contract

Once you have your auth token and app ID, you’re ready to create your contract to mint your NFTs. It’s important to note that creating a contract does not automatically deploy it. While you’re still learning, or when testing something new, it is recommended to use the Rinkeby testnet – which does not incur any charges, but does not allow actual minting of NFTs, and is set by default in the recipe code – rather than the live mainnet.

1. In your Python IDE, create a new script.
2. Open the recipe below and copy the code to your IDE.

1. As before, populate the variables with your copied data.

• AUTH_TOKEN (line 4) - your auth token from the previous section. If it’s been more than about 6 hours since you generated it, you’ll need to generate a new one before continuing.
• APP_ID (line 6) - your app ID. See the Overview section of your app’s Info page in the Developer Portal if you did not copy this earlier.

1. On line 11 of the recipe code, the contract is set to use the Rinkeby testnet. If you’re creating an actual contract, you’ll want to change rinkeby to mainnet.
2. Save and run your script.
3. Similar to when the auth token was generated, your contract ID will be shown upon success.

contract id is: 12345678-da5b-494c-8719-bdba105e3612

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Deploy your contract

Before you can mint an NFT, you’ll need to deploy your contract. To do this, you’ll send a PATCH request to same endpoint as the previous step when you created the contract. Even if creating a free/test contract, you’ll need to have billing set up in order for the server to find your “store” (your online presence that grants you the ability to deploy contracts).

1. Open the recipe below, and copy the code into a new script in your IDE.

1. Populate the variable data with your auth token, app ID, and contract ID.
2. Save and run your script.

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Create your NFT

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Configure your NFT

A token template, also known as a NFT, is used to mint tokens. As with the other steps in this guide, you need an auth token to create a token template. Additionally, you need to provide the following information:

• Application ID This is your application under which your contract and products are created.
• Contract ID Also known as a collection, a contract is what mints your NFTs. You can use an existing contract, or create a new one.
• Max Tokens The number of tokens to be minted.
• Product Name The name of your token. When minting more than one token, all tokens share the name. If you’d like to mint individual single tokens, with unique names, you’ll need to create multiple token templates.

1. Open the recipe below, and copy the code into a new script in your IDE.

1. Populate the variable data with your auth token, app ID, and contract ID.
2. Save and run your script.
3. Note the token template ID.

token template id: 4aea50a7-7254-46a3-bbe2-7b54339ff722

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Preparing to mint your NFTs

After you’ve deployed your contract and created your token template, you’re ready to finish preparing your NFT. In the Creator Portal, token templates are called products, and contracts are called collections. Before you can mint, you need to have a title (you created this as part of the token template script, earlier), a description, and at least an image. You also need to select whether your NFT(s) will be sold for a fixed price or at auction with a specified minimum bid. At the time of this writing, it isn’t possible to fully prepare or mint NFTs on a test contract.

1. Log into the Creator Portal. You should see a page similar to the one below.

Token templates are listed as Products, and Contracts under which they’re minted are listed as Collections.

1. Click on the product you made earlier to enter the Edit Product page.
2. Fill out both fields of the Product Information and add your primary image.
3. Upload any optional additional data.
4. In Sales Details, select your sale type and set the details accordingly.
5. Click “Update” to save your changes.

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Minting your NFT

You’re finally ready to mint! This section assumes you want to mint directly to a wallet, be it your own or a buyer’s. If you just want to make the NFTs available for sale or auction, you need only click Schedule under Sales Details.

1. Copy and paste the code from the recipe below into a new script.

1. As before, populate your variable data.
2. Save and run your script.
3. In addition to the response in the script, you can also check the Inventory column for this particular product in the Creator Portal. The first number is the count of minted tokens, and the second is the maximum number of this product to be minted.

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Next Steps

Congratulations! If you’ve worked – or even just read – through this entire guide, you are now familiar with the process of minting NFTs with Bitski. Though the steps were in separate scripts for the purposes of this tutorial, in production you would likely want everything in one or two scripts. A good separation might be one script to get you from auth token to contract deployment, and another script for minting after your NFT is fully configured in the Creator Portal. As you grow more familiar with Bitski, you may wish to build GUI-based tools.