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Create a collection

This guide assumes you have the NFTs node running in the background — you can learn how to set that here - either by cloning the repo and running it locally or by using the binary available in the releases.

Collection settings​

We'll create a collection under the following settings:

  • The creator (Alice) is the Issuer
  • The collection's metadata will be locked
  • The metadata contains the CID of an arbitrary picture on IPFS
  • The collection has no maximum number of items set
  • Items from this collection are non-transferrable

Set up​

Start by importing ApiPromise and KeyRing from the Polkadot JS library in your local environment.

// Import the API, Keyring and some utility functions
const { ApiPromise } = require('@polkadot/api');
const { Keyring } = require('@polkadot/keyring');

// Addresses from our dev chain
const ALICE = '5GrwvaEF5zXb26Fz9rcQpDWS57CtERHpNehXCPcNoHGKutQY';

// Instantiate the API
const api = await ApiPromise.create();

// Construct the keyring after the API (crypto has an async init)
const keyring = new Keyring({ type: 'sr25519' });

// Add Alice to our keyring with a hard-derivation path (empty phrase, so uses dev)
const alice = keyring.addFromUri('//Alice');

Create a collection​

The following snippet constructs an extrinsic and signs it using the Alice account:

  // Create an extrinsic to create a collection with default settings
  const createCollection = await api.tx.nft.create(ALICE, 0x00);
  
  // Sign and send the transaction using our account
  const hash = await createCollection.signAndSend(alice);
  
  console.log('Collection created with id', collectionId.toString());

Set the metadata​

Create another extrinsic to set the collection's metadata:

  // Set metadata for collection 0 with metadata CID
  const collectionId = 0;
  const setCollectionMetadata = api.tx.nft.setCollectionMetadata(collectionId.toString(), 'QmY5GnoiANupwMbsLVaEa3YwjXKkKyvL4fCyAMRTTNqJNY')
  
  // Sign and send the transaction using the Alice account
  const txHash = await setCollectionMetadata.signAndSend(alice);

  console.log('Metadata updated with transaction hash', txHash.toHex());

Lock the metadata of selected items​

Finally, to lock the metadata of a single item all we need to do is specify the collection and item ID with want to lock. Note: only the collection owner, Alice can make this operation:

const itemId = 1;
const lockCollection = api.tx.nft.lockItemProperties(collectionId, itemId, true, false);

// Sign and send the transaction using the Alice account
const txHash = await lockCollection.signAndSend(alice);

console.log('Metadata updated with transaction hash', txHash.toHex());

Note that these series of transactions can be batched using the Utility pallet. Future guides will have these examples once #3 is closed.

Continue onto learning how to configure specific minting settings for collections.