hApp Example

What is hApp Example and what is it for?

hApp Example is an example Holochain app project that shows one way to set up an app's build and test environment. Developers read or copy it as a starting point for their own build files; it is not an application that end users run.

hApp Example is an example app project published under the Holo-Host organisation on GitHub, kept as a worked example of how to configure a Holochain app's build and test environment rather than as software to run. It holds a small Rust app alongside the Nix files — default.nix, pkgs.nix and shell.nix — that a developer copies into their own project and edits to point at their app.

The template's point is a repeatable environment. Instead of each developer assembling a toolchain by hand, the example shows one set of configuration files that builds an app's DNA using tooling from holo-nixpkgs, supports developing against either a local or a bundled version of the Holochain core, and wires the same configuration into continuous integration services. A September 2019 development update from the Holochain project introduced it as a response to dependency breakage between core releases.

In practice a developer copies the three Nix files, replaces the example name with their own, and builds; the example also demonstrates scenario tests run through the hc test command, with Makefile targets and Hydra and CircleCI integration. The repository's README is where the exact steps and file roles are documented. The same documentation describes holochain-rust and sim2h, an early Holochain development environment, and no source read here states that it works with current releases.

From 2 public sources, checked 23 September 2026.