Walrus Sites — End to End

This walkthrough takes you from a freshly built static site (./dist) to a live Walrus Sites URL using only cmdo prompts. Tested on Ubuntu x86_64 with Commando 0.2.4-beta.

Prerequisites

• Commando ≥ 0.2.4-beta installed and cmdo doctor is green.
• A built static site folder (e.g. ./dist from npm run build). ~1 MB is plenty for a first deploy.
• An LLM provider configured (cmdo init), or CMDO_LLM_MOCK=1 for offline mode.

1. Wallet + gas

You need a Sui testnet wallet with ≥ 0.5 SUI. If you already have one, skip ahead.

cmdo "create new sui address"
cmdo "switch to testnet" --sui
cmdo "give me testnet sui from faucet"
sui client gas

Confirm at least one coin with balance ≥ 500000000 MIST (= 0.5 SUI). Re-run the faucet prompt if needed.

2. WAL coins

Walrus Sites pays for blob storage in WAL. Fetch some testnet WAL:

cmdo "get wal" --walrus

This plans walrus get-wal, which uses your active SUI to mint testnet WAL via the WAL exchange. Run twice if your first deploy is large (~10 MB site needs more WAL than a 1 MB site).

3. Sites config

site-builder requires ~/.config/walrus/sites-config.yaml. Not auto-bootstrapped in 0.2.4-beta:

mkdir -p ~/.config/walrus
curl -L -o ~/.config/walrus/sites-config.yaml \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MystenLabs/walrus-sites/main/sites-config.yaml

# Make sure the context matches your wallet (testnet)
sed -i 's/^default_context: mainnet$/default_context: testnet/' \
  ~/.config/walrus/sites-config.yaml

Verify:

grep '^default_context' ~/.config/walrus/sites-config.yaml
# expected: default_context: testnet

4. Deploy

From the folder containing your built site:

cmdo "deploy static site in ./dist to walrus-sites" --site-builder

The planner emits something like site-builder deploy --epochs 1 ./dist. Commando spawns it, streams progress, and prints the resulting site object ID and URL on success.

Equivalent explicit prompt if you want to control the epoch count:

cmdo "run site-builder deploy --epochs 5 ./dist" --site-builder

--epochs N controls how many storage epochs the site is paid for upfront. 1 epoch ≈ 24 hours on testnet at the time of writing.

5. Verify

The deploy output includes a Sui object ID for your site (e.g. 0xabc...). Browse it:

• Walrus Sites portal: https://<base36-of-object-id>.walrus.site

• Inspect via site-builder:

  cmdo "show sitemap for site 0xabc..." --site-builder

  Plans site-builder sitemap 0xabc....

6. Update later

To push a new version of the site to the same object ID:

cmdo "update walrus site 0xabc... from ./dist" --site-builder

Plans site-builder update --epochs 1 ./dist 0xabc.... Same WAL/SUI cost rules apply.

End-to-end timing

On a clean Ubuntu VPS (Commando 0.2.4-beta, ~860 KB site):

Troubleshooting checklist

Full table: Troubleshooting.

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