Introduction
This page provides a high-level, non-normative overview of the Cowboy actor development lifecycle, aligned with the whitepaper and CIP-1/2/3. It intentionally avoids prescriptive SDK/CLI commands, network specifics, token faucets, performance claims, or unfinalized APIs.What you’ll learn
- Actor lifecycle at a glance
- Determinism constraints of the Python VM
- Dual-metered fees (Cycles and Cells)
- When to use timers (CIP-1) and off-chain compute (CIP-2)
Actor lifecycle (conceptual)
- Author an Actor in Python that complies with determinism and the module whitelist.
- Prepare a deployable artifact and submit a deployment transaction.
- On inclusion, the VM executes your code deterministically; fees are charged per CIP-3 (Cycles/Cells, basefee burn, tip to proposer).
- Interact with the Actor by sending messages; use timers for scheduled actions (CIP-1) and off-chain compute for external tasks (CIP-2).
Coming soon
- SDK/CLI installation and commands
- Local devnet and public testnet details
- End-to-end examples with code and receipts