Although the official test network is still in preparation, anyone can create their own test environment on a local node. Please understand things are likely to change; however, not drastically so.

We have started to put together documentation for developers. This documentation often lags behind development and is currently far below the standard of what we plan to deliver along with the official test network.

https://eosio.github.io/eos/

Starting a Local Node

Anyone can start a local node by following the build instructions here:

How to Build EOS.IO (eosd)

Interfacing with Local Node via RPC

The eosd executable can be configured to expose a REST/JSON interface over HTTP. The existing APIs are quite limited but will be dramatically expanded over time. For information on how to interface with this RPC interface directly please see this documentation:

eosd RPC Interface

Interfacing with Local Node via CLI (eosc)

eosc is a tool that wraps the RPC interface and makes it easy for users to query eosd. This tool will eventually become the primary way to interact with eosd for developers wishing to publish contracts to the blockchain.

For a quick tutorial on how to create accounts, transfer funds, upload contracts, and interface with those contracts via eosc and eosd please see this:

eosc - command line client

Current Development Status

As things currently stand the blockchain is doing no signature validation. This means any account can trigger any action. This makes things very easy to test the logic of your applications. It also means that it is not currently necessary to maintain a wallet with private keys to use the network to test your applications.

Over the next few weeks we will be building a CLI wallet and enabling developers to turn on signature validation and permission checking.

Also note that the current RPC API makes it very difficult to query the state of your contract. This will be remedied next week.

Getting Started with Development

We have several example contracts that you can use as a starting point:

For information about the available APIs please see:
How to Write Contracts

There is also a helpful index of all documentation.

Developer Channel

We have also created a new developer channel on Telegram ( tg://join?invite=EaEnSUPktgfoI-XPfMYtcQ ). This channel is heavily moderated to keep the topic focused on developers helping developers. If you have questions this is the best place to get real-time support from the community. Our developers will also monitor this chat and attempt to help as time permits.

We would also like to establish the #eosdev tag here on steemit. If you have developer questions and/or answers please post under this tag. I will attempt to follow it and turn it into our own stack exchange. Quality questions, answers, and tutorials will receive up votes.

This is just the beginning

This information is provided for information purposes only based upon community demand. We would appreciate any feedback you can give as it will help us refine how we develop EOS.IO to serve the needs of developers. All documentation and designs are still subject to change, but with your feedback they can change for the better!