Can Daedalus be used to query the blockchain, like a passive node?

Question

Daedalus is a full node wallet application, but can I use the full node to query the ledger?

Answer 1

Daedalus runs its own instance of cardano-node under the hood, so by installing and using cardano-cli, one can connect to this node and interact with the blockchain directly.

1. Start Daedalus, and wait until it reaches the wallet home screen; the cardano-node.socket file is only made available after the cardano-node has started fully.
2. Use cardano-cli: [Documentation]

Ubuntu Example (Bash)

export CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH=/home/$USER/.local/share/Daedalus/mainnet/cardano-node.socket
cardano-cli query tip --mainnet

MacOS Example

export CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH=~/Library/Application\ Support/Daedalus\ Mainnet/cardano-node.socket
cardano-cli query tip --mainnet

Windows Example (PowerShell)

On Windows, a socket file isn't used, instead we specify the pipe used, which has a different name every time Daedalus runs.

cd "C:\Program Files\Daedalus Mainnet"
$ENV:CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH = (Get-ChildItem \\.\pipe\ | Where-Object {$_.name -like "cardano-node*"}).FullName
.\cardano-cli.exe query tip --mainnet

Answer 2

If you really have to use standard Windows CMD (instead of PowerShell) we first need to get the PID of the right "Daedalus Mainnet" process (there are multiple) eg 12345, then set CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH eg:

cd "C:\Program Files\Daedalus Mainnet"
set CARDANO_NODE_SOCKET_PATH=\\.\pipe\cardano-node-mainnet.12345.0

(Swap the 12345 with your PID value, see below. You might need to change the .0 too)

Then run your cardano-cli commands eg

cardano-cli query tip --mainnet

This should then work until you restart Daedalus.

Note: make sure Daedalus is fully synced before running cardano-cli

To get the PID manually via Task manager:

I see 4 processes named "Daedalus Mainnet" under the Processes tab in Windows11. Select the one with extra details after the name eg "(4.8.0#23001)" and right-click "Go To Details", note the PID eg 12345.

To get the PID via PowerShell, run:

(Get-ChildItem \\.\pipe\ | Where-Object {$_.name -like "cardano-node*"}).FullName

(Thanks to soccer193 and Tend for this PS snippet)