Create an account
Before we get started with working with Stellar in code, consider going through the following examples using the Stellar Lab. The lab allows you create accounts, fund accounts on the Stellar test network, build transactions, run any operation, and inspect responses from Horizon via the Endpoint Explorer.
Accounts are a fundamental building block of Stellar: they hold all your balances, allow you to send and receive payments, and let you place offers to buy and sell assets. Since pretty much everything on Stellar is in some way tied to an account, the first thing you generally need to do when you start developing is create one. This beginner-level tutorial will show you how to do that.
Create a Keypair
Stellar uses public key cryptography to ensure that every transaction is secure: every Stellar account has a keypair consisting of a public key and a secret key. The public key is always safe to share — other people need it to identify your account and verify that you authorized a transaction. It's like an email address. The secret key, however, is private information that proves you own — and gives you access to — your account. It's like a password, and you should never share it with anyone.
Before creating an account, you need to generate your own keypair:
- JavaScript
- Java
- Go
- Python
// create a completely new and unique pair of keys
// see more about KeyPair objects: https://stellar.github.io/js-stellar-sdk/Keypair.html
const pair = StellarSdk.Keypair.random();
pair.secret();
// SAV76USXIJOBMEQXPANUOQM6F5LIOTLPDIDVRJBFFE2MDJXG24TAPUU7
pair.publicKey();
// GCFXHS4GXL6BVUCXBWXGTITROWLVYXQKQLF4YH5O5JT3YZXCYPAFBJZB
// create a completely new and unique pair of keys.
// see more about KeyPair objects: https://stellar.github.io/java-stellar-sdk/org/stellar/sdk/KeyPair.html
import org.stellar.sdk.KeyPair;
KeyPair pair = KeyPair.random();
System.out.println(new String(pair.getSecretSeed()));
// SAV76USXIJOBMEQXPANUOQM6F5LIOTLPDIDVRJBFFE2MDJXG24TAPUU7
System.out.println(pair.getAccountId());
// GCFXHS4GXL6BVUCXBWXGTITROWLVYXQKQLF4YH5O5JT3YZXCYPAFBJZB
package main
import (
"log"
"github.com/stellar/go/keypair"
)
func main() {
pair, err := keypair.Random()
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
log.Println(pair.Seed())
// SAV76USXIJOBMEQXPANUOQM6F5LIOTLPDIDVRJBFFE2MDJXG24TAPUU7
log.Println(pair.Address())
// GCFXHS4GXL6BVUCXBWXGTITROWLVYXQKQLF4YH5O5JT3YZXCYPAFBJZB
}
# stellar-sdk >= 2.0.0 required
# create a completely new and unique pair of keys
# see more about KeyPair objects: https://stellar-sdk.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api.html#keypair
from stellar_sdk import Keypair
pair = Keypair.random()
print(f"Secret: {pair.secret}")
# Secret: SCMDRX7A7OVRPAGXLUVRNIYTWBLCS54OV7UH2TF5URSG4B4JQMUADCYU
print(f"Public Key: {pair.public_key}")
# Public Key: GAG7SXULMNWCW6LX42JKZOZRA2JJXQT23LYY32OXA6XECUQG7RZTQJHO
Create Account
A valid keypair, however, does not make an account: in order to prevent unused accounts from bloating the ledger, Stellar requires accounts to hold a minimum balance of 1 XLM before they actually exist. Until it gets a bit of funding, your keypair doesn't warrant space on the ledger.
On the public network, where live users make live transactions, your next step would be to acquire XLM, which you can do by consulting our section on lumens. Because this tutorial runs on the test network, you can get 10,000 test XLM from Friendbot, which is a friendly account funding tool.
To do that, send Friendbot the public key you created. It’ll create and fund a new account using that public key as the account ID.
- JavaScript
- Java
- Go
- Python
// The SDK does not have tools for creating test accounts, so you'll have to
// make your own HTTP request.
// if you're trying this on Node, install the `node-fetch` library and
// uncomment the next line:
// const fetch = require('node-fetch');
(async function main() {
try {
const response = await fetch(
`https://friendbot.stellar.org?addr=${encodeURIComponent(
pair.publicKey(),
)}`,
);
const responseJSON = await response.json();
console.log("SUCCESS! You have a new account :)\n", responseJSON);
} catch (e) {
console.error("ERROR!", e);
}
// After you've got your test lumens from friendbot, we can also use that account to create a new account on the ledger.
try {
const server = new StellarSdk.Horizon.Server(
"https://horizon-testnet.stellar.org",
);
var parentAccount = await server.loadAccount(pair.publicKey()); //make sure the parent account exists on ledger
var childAccount = StellarSdk.Keypair.random(); //generate a random account to create
//create a transacion object.
var createAccountTx = new StellarSdk.TransactionBuilder(parentAccount, {
fee: StellarSdk.BASE_FEE,
networkPassphrase: StellarSdk.Networks.TESTNET,
});
//add the create account operation to the createAccountTx transaction.
createAccountTx = await createAccountTx
.addOperation(
StellarSdk.Operation.createAccount({
destination: childAccount.publicKey(),
startingBalance: "5",
}),
)
.setTimeout(180)
.build();
//sign the transaction with the account that was created from friendbot.
await createAccountTx.sign(pair);
//submit the transaction
let txResponse = await server
.submitTransaction(createAccountTx)
// some simple error handling
.catch(function (error) {
console.log("there was an error");
console.log(error.response);
console.log(error.status);
console.log(error.extras);
return error;
});
console.log(txResponse);
console.log("Created the new account", childAccount.publicKey());
} catch (e) {
console.error("ERROR!", e);
}
})();
// The SDK does not have tools for creating test accounts, so you'll have to
// make your own HTTP request.
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
String friendbotUrl = String.format(
"https://friendbot.stellar.org/?addr=%s",
pair.getAccountId());
InputStream response = new URL(friendbotUrl).openStream();
String body = new Scanner(response, "UTF-8").useDelimiter("\\A").next();
System.out.println("SUCCESS! You have a new account :)\n" + body);
package main
import (
"net/http"
"io/ioutil"
"log"
"fmt"
)
func main() {
// pair is the pair that was generated from previous example, or create a pair based on
// existing keys.
address := pair.Address()
resp, err := http.Get("https://friendbot.stellar.org/?addr=" + address)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
defer resp.Body.Close()
body, err := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println(string(body))
}
# The SDK does not have tools for creating test accounts, so you'll have to
# make your own HTTP request.
# if you're trying this on Python, install the `requests` library.
import requests
public_key = "GD4NB2FLQAN5JO7PKPGZJMNBDYQXVSNVC7DEIZMOL5WSNSBLEBUTEF5Q"
response = requests.get(f"https://friendbot.stellar.org?addr={public_key}")
if response.status_code == 200:
print(f"SUCCESS! You have a new account :)\n{response.text}")
else:
print(f"ERROR! Response: \n{response.text}")
Now for the last step: getting the account’s details and checking its balance. Accounts can carry multiple balances — one for each type of currency they hold.
- JavaScript
- Java
- Go
- Python
const server = new StellarSdk.Horizon.Server(
"https://horizon-testnet.stellar.org",
);
// the JS SDK uses promises for most actions, such as retrieving an account
const account = await server.loadAccount(pair.publicKey());
console.log("Balances for account: " + pair.publicKey());
account.balances.forEach(function (balance) {
console.log("Type:", balance.asset_type, ", Balance:", balance.balance);
});
import org.stellar.sdk.Server;
import org.stellar.sdk.responses.AccountResponse;
Server server = new Server("https://horizon-testnet.stellar.org");
AccountResponse account = server.accounts().account(pair.getAccountId());
System.out.println("Balances for account " + pair.getAccountId());
for (AccountResponse.Balance balance : account.getBalances()) {
System.out.printf(
"Type: %s, Code: %s, Balance: %s%n",
balance.getAssetType(),
balance.getAssetCode(),
balance.getBalance()
);
}
package main
import (
"log"
"github.com/stellar/go/clients/horizonclient"
)
func main() {
// Replace this with the output from earlier, or use pair.Address()
address := "GCFXHS4GXL6BVUCXBWXGTITROWLVYXQKQLF4YH5O5JT3YZXCYPAFBJZB"
request := horizonclient.AccountRequest{AccountID: address}
account, err := horizonclient.DefaultTestNetClient.AccountDetail(request)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
log.Println("Balances for account:", address)
for _, balance := range account.Balances {
log.Println(balance)
}
}
from stellar_sdk import Server
server = Server("https://horizon-testnet.stellar.org")
public_key = "GD4NB2FLQAN5JO7PKPGZJMNBDYQXVSNVC7DEIZMOL5WSNSBLEBUTEF5Q"
account = server.accounts().account_id(public_key).call()
for balance in account['balances']:
print(f"Type: {balance['asset_type']}, Balance: {balance['balance']}")
Now that you’ve got an account, you can start sending and receiving payments, or, if you're ready to hunker down, you can skip ahead and build a wallet or issue a Stellar-network asset.
In the above code samples, proper error checking is omitted for brevity. However, you should always validate your results, as there are many ways that requests can fail. You should refer to the guide on Error Handling for tips on error management strategies.
Guides in this category:
📄️ Create an account
Create and fund a Stellar account
📄️ Send and receive payments
Learn to send payments and watch for received payments on the Stellar network
📄️ Follow received payments
Watch for incoming payments using Horizon
📄️ Automating Testnet and Futurenet reset data
Learn how to automate Testnet and Futurenet reset data on Stellar