motoko

Motoko examples

Canonical examples for building canisters on the Internet Computer with Motoko. Each example is self-contained: follow its README to deploy it locally with icp-cli and run its tests. Most examples have a Rust counterpart in ../rust/ implementing the same Candid interface.

New to ICP? Start with hello_world — a full-stack canister with a frontend and the structural template for all examples. Then try who_am_i for user authentication with Internet Identity.

Prerequisites and dev-container setup are covered in the repository README.

Getting started

• hello_world — full-stack "Hello, world!" with a Motoko backend and a Vite frontend.
• backend_only — the minimal canister: a single greet query function, no frontend.
• who_am_i — sign in with Internet Identity and see the principal your app receives.

Full-stack applications

• daily_planner — monthly calendar with notes and tasks; fetches historic facts via HTTPS outcalls.
• superheroes — CRUD application with a React frontend.
• filevault — upload, download, and delete files stored per Internet Identity principal.
• flying_ninja — 2D side-scroller game with an on-chain leaderboard.
• ic-pos — point-of-sale app accepting ICRC-1 token payments via QR codes.
• llm_chatbot — chat with a large language model from a canister.

Tokens and payments

• icp_transfer — hold ICP in a canister and send it to other accounts via the ICP ledger.
• icrc2-swap — safe inter-canister call patterns for ICRC-2 token swaps.

Chain fusion and signing

• basic_bitcoin — send and receive Bitcoin using threshold ECDSA and Schnorr signatures.
• threshold-ecdsa — a threshold ECDSA signing oracle.
• threshold-schnorr — a threshold Schnorr (BIP340/BIP341, Ed25519) signing oracle.
• evm_block_explorer — fetch block data from Ethereum and other EVM chains via the EVM RPC canister.

HTTPS outcalls

• send_http_get — make a GET request to an external API from a canister.
• send_http_post — make a POST request to an external API from a canister.

Inter-canister patterns

• parallel_calls — parallel vs. sequential inter-canister calls.
• pub-sub — publisher/subscriber messaging using shared function references as callbacks.
• composite_query — query functions that call other canisters' queries.
• canister_factory — create canisters dynamically via actor classes and the management canister.

System features

• hello_cycles — the fundamental cycle management operations.
• canister_logs — canister logging with Debug.print and trap records.
• low_wasm_memory — react to low Wasm memory with the lowmemory system hook.
• query_stats — read a canister's own query statistics.
• cert-var — certified variables: cryptographically verifiable query responses.
• random_maze — cryptographic randomness from the network's random beacon.

Encryption with vetKeys

The vetkeys/ directory contains examples for vetKeys, from the low-level API to complete applications: basic_vetkd, basic_ibe, basic_bls_signing, password_manager, password_manager_with_metadata, and encrypted_notes_app_vetkd.

Security considerations and best practices

If you base your application on one of these examples, we recommend you familiarize yourself with and adhere to the security best practices for developing on the Internet Computer. The examples provided here may not implement all the best practices.