This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Emanuel Ferreira
In this article we are going to create a smart contract to mint an NFT on Ethereum.
Setup the project
To start the project we will use the hardhat that will provide us with a boilerplate to deploy the contract, do tests, etc.
Installing the hardhat
We will install hardhat as development dependency using the yarn.
Open a new terminal and run these commands:
mkdir nft-token
cd nft-token
yarn init -y
yarn add hardhat -D
In the same directory where you installed Hardhat run:
npx hardhat
Select Create an empty hardhat.config.js with your keyboard and hit enter.
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? Welcome to Hardhat v2.6.4 ?
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❯ Create an empty hardhat.config.js
Quit
Creating the files and directories
Let's start by creating a directory called contracts in the root folder.
/node_modules
/contracts
hardhat.config.js
package.json
yarn.lock
After creating the folder we can create our first file of our contract inside the directory, let's call it: factoryNFT.sol
.
/node_modules
/contracts
| - factoryNFT.sol
hardhat.config.js
package.json
yarn.lock
Writing the smart contract
Now we go to the most anticipated part of the article, writing our contract.
Note: You can review the basics in my other article: How to create a smart contract to receive donations using Solidity
Let's start defining the pragma version:
factoryNFT.sol
pragma solidity ^0.8.3;
To help us, we will install the openzeppelin contracts package.
yarn add @openzeppelin/contracts @openzeppelin/hardhat-upgrades
Now we can import it into the contract.
factoryNFT.sol
pragma solidity ^0.8.3;
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/extensions/ERC721URIStorage.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
We made 3 imports:
- Counters: is a useful one that will help us increment a tokenId for each new token.
ERC721URIStorage: we will provide some functions to handle our tokenURI, which contains metadata and image.
ERC721: will we provide some basic functions of the ERC721;
Inheriting the OpenZeppelin contract
Now we can start by defining the name of our contract and inheriting the OpenZeppelin contracts.
factoryNFT.sol
pragma solidity ^0.8.3;
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/extensions/ERC721URIStorage.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
contract FactoryNFT is ERC721URIStorage {
using Counters for Counters.Counter;
Counters.Counter private _tokenIds;
constructor() ERC721("Factory NFT", "FTN") {
}
}
Creating our Mint function
Let's start by creating our function calling createToken, where it will receive as a parameter, our tokenURI.
factoryNFT.sol
pragma solidity ^0.8.3;
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/extensions/ERC721URIStorage.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
contract FactoryNFT is ERC721URIStorage {
using Counters for Counters.Counter;
Counters.Counter private _tokenIds;
constructor() ERC721("Factory NFT", "FTN") {
}
function createToken(string memory tokenURI) public returns (uint) {
}
}
Now let's increment the amount of token in storage and save it in a variable.
factoryNFT.sol
pragma solidity ^0.8.3;
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/extensions/ERC721URIStorage.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
contract FactoryNFT is ERC721URIStorage {
using Counters for Counters.Counter;
Counters.Counter private _tokenIds;
constructor() ERC721("Factory NFT", "FTN") {
}
function createToken(string memory tokenURI) public returns (uint) {
_tokenIds.increment();
uint256 newItemId = _tokenIds.current();
}
}
Now we can put the main function of the contract which is to mint our NFT and set its tokenURI.
factoryNFT.sol
pragma solidity ^0.8.3;
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/extensions/ERC721URIStorage.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
contract FactoryNFT is ERC721URIStorage {
using Counters for Counters.Counter;
Counters.Counter private _tokenIds;
constructor() ERC721("Factory NFT", "FTN") {
}
function createToken(string memory tokenURI) public returns (uint) {
_tokenIds.increment();
uint256 newItemId = _tokenIds.current();
_mint(msg.sender, newItemId);
_setTokenURI(newItemId, tokenURI);
return newItemId;
}
}
Compiling and testing the Contract
Now to test the contract, we are going to compile it and write a test for it.
First of all let's go to the hardhat.config.js
file and change the solidity version to ^0.8.3.
hardhat.config.js
/**
* @type import('hardhat/config').HardhatUserConfig
*/
module.exports = {
solidity: "^0.8.3",
};
Plugins
Now to test our contract we need to install some plugins for hardhat to help us interact with Ethereum and test our contracts.
yarn add -D @nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers ethers @nomiclabs/hardhat-waffle ethereum-waffle chai
After adding the plugins we need to add a line in hardhat.config.js
to setup the plugins.
hardhat.config.js
require("@nomiclabs/hardhat-waffle");
/**
* @type import('hardhat/config').HardhatUserConfig
*/
module.exports = {
solidity: "^0.8.3",
};
Writing the test
Now create a directory called test
in the root folder and add called: factoryNFT.js
.
/node_modules
/contracts
/test
|- factoryNFT.js
hardhat.config.js
package.json
yarn.lock
Now I am going to put the test below and explain each line to understand it.
const { expect } = require("chai");
describe("Minting the token and returning it", function () {
it("should the contract be able to mint a function and return it", async function () {
const metadata = "https://opensea-creatures-api.herokuapp.com/api/creature/1" //Random metadata url
const FactoryContract = await ethers.getContractFactory("FactoryNFT"); // Getting the contract
const factoryContract = await FactoryContract.deploy(); //Deploying the Contract
const transaction = await factoryContract.createToken(metadata); // Minting the token
const tx = await transaction.wait() // Waiting for the token to be minted
const event = tx.events[0];
const value = event.args[2];
const tokenId = value.toNumber(); // Getting the tokenID
const tokenURI = await factoryContract.tokenURI(tokenId) // Using the tokenURI from ERC721 to retrieve de metadata
expect(tokenURI).to.be.equal(metadata); // Comparing and testing
});
});
Now just compile and run the test and we will have the result!.
npx hardhat compile
npx hardhat test
So we come to the end, soon we will have a tutorial on how to get up to rinkeby testnet.
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This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Emanuel Ferreira

Emanuel Ferreira | Sciencx (2021-09-16T15:33:02+00:00) How to create a Smart Contract to mint an NFT. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2021/09/16/how-to-create-a-smart-contract-to-mint-an-nft/
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