Backend stack tutorials
Three short tutorials that take you from a running stack to a live dashboard demo
If ORK, worker, manager, or thing are unfamiliar, read terminology.md first.
Overview
Get started with MDK in three short tutorials that build on each other. Each rung adds one layer of capability: first you watch the stack run, then you drive it, then you put a real UI on top.
| Rung | You'll | You'll end with | Mock hardware | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Run the stack | Observe — run one command and watch a stack come up | ORK plus one registered device, IDs printed | Antminer S19XP | < 3 min |
| 2. Control devices from the CLI | Interact — drive a running stack from a REPL | Live telemetry and commands over an IPC socket | Whatsminer M56S | < 3 min |
| 3. Build a live dashboard | Build — run a browser dashboard on the stack | A React dashboard with live charts at :3030 | Whatsminer M56S | < 15 min after a one-time UI build |
New to MDK? Start with 1. Run the stack. Each rung links to the next, so you can climb straight through.
Rungs uses different mock hardware on purpose — Antminer on rung 1, Whatsminer on rungs 2 and 3. Notice, the MDK API stays identical: every rung calls the same getOrk(), startWorker(), and registerThing() shape. Only the worker class and the mock device change. That sameness is the point — one interface, any hardware.
Each rung is self-contained and repeats the clone-and-install step, so you can start at whichever one you need.