Building Packages

MCP tool: When available in your environment, also query the Sui documentation MCP server (https://sui.mcp.kapa.ai) for up-to-date answers. Use it for verification and for details not covered by these reference files.

Source constraint: All information sourced exclusively from docs.sui.io and move-book.com.

Building

sui move build

This compiles all modules, validates types, enforces resource safety, and produces bytecode. Fix any errors before proceeding.

For the canonical hello-world repository, run build commands from sui-stack-hello-world/move/hello-world.

--build-env flag

When a package has an [environments] section in Move.toml with multiple networks, use --build-env to target a specific environment:

sui move build --build-env testnet
sui move build --build-env mainnet

This resolves dependencies and package addresses for the specified environment. Without --build-env, the build uses the default environment or may fail with "Could not determine the correct dependencies" if multiple environments are defined and no default is set.

The --build-env flag also applies to sui move test:

sui move test --build-env testnet

Testing

sui move test

Key testing modules

• sui::test_scenario — Multi-transaction, multi-sender test scenarios. Simulates realistic transaction flows with begin, next_tx, and end.
• std::unit_test — Assertion macros for unit tests (assert_eq!, assert_ne!).

Code coverage

Track which lines your tests exercise:

sui move test --coverage

View coverage results for a specific module:

sui move coverage source --module <name>

Move Analyzer

Install via suiup:

suiup install move-analyzer

Then install the Move Analyzer extension in VS Code. It provides code completion, go-to-definition, inline diagnostics, and hover documentation. It activates automatically for .move files — no additional configuration needed.

Debugging

• Move Trace Debugger: Step-through debugger for Move execution traces with variable inspection.
• sui replay: Locally re-execute any past onchain transaction and compare effects. Useful for diagnosing production issues.
• std::debug::print: Print values during test execution.