Steps for Creating a 3D NFT Marketplace on Stacks #04 - Deploying the Minter Contract

In this fourth entry of the series to build a 3D NFT marketplace on Stacks, we're going to deploy the minter.clar contract to the Stacks testnet. This contract handles the minting of avatars and serves as the foundation for the marketplace.

🛠️ Requirements

• Have Clarinet installed
• Have a valid seed phrase to sign transactions. You can install stx-cli via npm i -g @stacks/cli and generate a new seed phrase with stx make_keychain -t (-t for Testnet). It will output something like this:

{
  "mnemonic": "one visit primary liberty layer turn tattoo love empower save eternal void salmon attitude vault artwork roof habit indoor announce drill train seminar night",
  "keyInfo": {
    "privateKey": "b88acb1d147707196d70c5a56202fa6dd0ff810e0799dae50a39ad50e391437201",
    "publicKey": "02cf9d1eb8c3d31b574fc9ca20782ecba596a00e9671464235fde5dd017fc1fd9a",
    "address": "ST3ZFT624V70VXEYAZ51VPKRHXSEQRT6PA51T2SPS",
    "btcAddress": "n4mD87ZhBF5DUoRd8gCnU6B2qUV1LsZ6bQ",
    "wif": "cTmRkKgzPmMN4LY1mh1YsRoZNq8HemH5k4goDSxN5jczdPfnSaE9",
    "index": 0
  }
}

• Get test tokens on this Stacks Testnet Faucet and fund the address you're going to deploy the contract to.

🧾 1. Create the Testnet.toml file

Inside your Clarinet project (/clarity/settings/):

[accounts.deployer]
mnemonic = "your-mnemonic-here"

[deployments.minter]
path = "contracts/minter.clar"

This file defines the wallet that will sign the deployment and the path to your Clarity contract.

🔍 2. Check balance

You can check balance of the address with this:

stx balance ST..X -t

📦 3. Generate the deployment plan

clarinet deployments generate --testnet --high-cost

This will create the deployments/Testnet.plan.yaml file, which contains the contracts to be deployed along with their hashes.

☁️ 4. Deploy the contract

Now run:

clarinet deployments apply --testnet

If everything is set up correctly, you'll see output like:

✅ Successfully deployed minter.clar to ST2ABC...XYZ.minter

Save that contract address (ST2ABC...XYZ.minter) — you’ll need it later in other contracts, such as the marketplace.

✅ 5. Verify on the explorer

You can search for the address in the Stacks Testnet Explorer to confirm it was deployed successfully.

📌 6. What’s next?

In the next post, we’ll code the marketplace contract and link it with this minter, enabling NFT listings for sale using STX or fungible tokens.

Go to Step #05