XCM Simulator

Setting up a live network with multiple connected parachains for testing XCM is not straight forward. The xcm-simulator was created as a solution to this problem. It's a network simulator specifically designed for testing and tinkering with XCM. It uses mock runtimes for a relay chain and parachains.

Although it's a great tool to learn and test XCMs, it shouldn't be the only thing you use to actually test your XCM-powered solution. We'll get into tools and best practices for testing in the testing chapter.

We'll use the simulator throughout the documentation to show different XCMs in action. In the next section we will take a first look at an XCM.