---
title: "Radix Developer Environment (Alexandria)"
url: "https://radix-wiki.miow.me/contents/tech/releases/radix-developer-environment-alexandria"
updated: 2026-10-03
description: "Alexandria [ /ˌæləgˈzændriə/ ] was a pre-Babylon version of the Radix network and appended the Olympia release with a Scrypto developer environment for testing…"
---

# Radix Developer Environment (Alexandria)

**Alexandria** [ /ˌæləgˈzændriə/ ] was a pre-Babylon version of the Radix network and appended the [Olympia](/contents/tech/releases/radix-mainnet-olympia) release with a [Scrypto](/contents/tech/core-protocols/scrypto-programming-language) developer environment for testing applications on a local network simulator.

## Features

Alexandria brought the release of an early form of [Scrypto](/contents/tech/core-protocols/scrypto-programming-language) and associated tools on the Scrypto Github repo, all of which are open source. Scrypto is a set of libraries and extensions to the popular Rust programming language that provides the [asset-oriented](/contents/tech/core-concepts/asset-oriented-programming) features that define the Scrypto experience of writing smart contracts. To test Scrypto [blueprints](/contents/tech/core-concepts/blueprints-and-packages) and [components](/contents/tech/core-concepts/components) meaningfully, the developer needs some way of deploying that code and interacting with it. Alexandria provides a simulator of such an environment that developers can use to quickly build, test, and iterate Scrypto code, all on their local computer.

## Scrypto Development

To help developers get started with Scrypto, Radix has launched a new Radix Developers Site, which provides links to installation instructions, documentation, examples, and more. Radix has also published a series of blog articles describing the need for Scrypto and how it is different from today's smart contract paradigm, as well as a new DeFi White Paper that collects much of the same information in one place.

## The Alexandria Preview

Scrypto reached developers a month before Alexandria itself did. At the [Alexandria Preview Event](/contents/history/alexandria-preview-event) in New York on 12 November 2021, RDX Works ran the first hands-on Scrypto workshop and, in its own later words, ["released a preview form of Scrypto and the other Alexandria tools on Github"](https://www.radixdlt.com/blog/radix-alexandria-scrypto-is-coming). The repository agrees: [v0.1.0](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto/releases/tag/v0.1.0) is its earliest tag, published at 16:26 UTC that afternoon. The Alexandria release proper followed on 15 December 2021 as [v0.2.0](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto/releases/tag/v0.2.0), whose release note reads simply "This is for Alexandria release".

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
|  | ** DEVELOPMENT** |
| **Launch Date** | [2021-12-15](https://www.radixdlt.com/blog/alexandria-scrypto-is-here) |
| **Antecedent** | [Olympia](/contents/tech/releases/radix-mainnet-olympia) |
| **Postcedent** | [Babylon](/contents/tech/releases/radix-mainnet-babylon) |
| **License** | [Radix License, v1](https://github.com/radixdlt/babylon-node/blob/main/LICENSE) |
|  | **LEDGER** |
| **State Model** | [Sharded](/contents/tech/core-concepts/sharding) |
| **Shard Groups** | [1](/contents/tech/core-concepts/shard-groups) |
| **Sybil Protection** | [Delegated Proof of Stake](/contents/tech/core-concepts/delegated-proof-of-stake-dpos) |
| **Consensus Protocol** | [Cerberus](/contents/tech/core-protocols/cerberus-consensus-protocol) |
| **Execution Environment** | [Radix Engine](/contents/tech/core-protocols/radix-engine) v2 |
| **[Validator Node](/contents/tech/core-concepts/validator-nodes) Cap** | 100 |