Forking Networks

You can fork live networks in Ape. To do so, ensure you are using a provider plugin with forking features. Some options are:

You can install one of these plugins by doing:

ape plugins install <foundry|hardhat>

Ensure you have also configured your upstream network (the network you are forking). For example, if forking ethereum:mainnet and using alchemy, set alchemy as the default mainnet provider:

ethereum:
  mainnet:
    default_provider: alchemy

Now, you can start and connect to your forked-network:

ape console --network ethereum:mainnet-fork:foundry

Learn more about setting up networks in the the networks guide.

Forking Plugin Networks

You can also fork L2 plugin networks. For example, to fork a network such as Optimism, install the ape-optimism plugin:

ape plugins install optimism

Then, just like you did for ethereum, configure optimism’s default mainnet provider:

optimism:
  mainnet:
    default_provider: alchemy

Now, you can start and connect to your forked-network:

ape console --network optimism:mainnet-fork:foundry

Configure Default

If you want to change the default network from local to your forked network, add the following config:

<ecosystem-name>:
  default_network: <network-name>_fork

Where ecosystem-name is the ecosystem containing the network and network-name is the network you are forking.

Forked Context

If you are already connected to a live network wish to temporarily fork it, use the fork() context manager:

from ape import networks

def main():
    with networks.ethereum.mainnet.use_provider("alchemy") as alchemy:
        print(alchemy.name)
        with networks.fork(provider_name="foundry") as foundry:
            print(foundry.name)

Learn more about the fork context manager here.