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The tape command-line tool does everything from your terminal: reserve tapes, write and read data, and manage S3-style objects. Point it at Tapedrive on your own hardware or at Tapenet. If you use the solana CLI, you already know the conventions here: the same default keypair path and the same one-letter URL shortcuts.

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Installation

The Tapedrive installer includes the CLI, node, gateway, Git remote helper, and the tape-install updater in one versioned user-local release. See Install Tapedrive for supported platforms and release-management commands.

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Quick Start

From a fresh install to a file written and read back.
Terminal recording of tape create, tape write, and tape read

A full write session: create a tape, write a file, read it back.

1

Connect to Tapenet

Local Tapedrive keeps the system on hardware you control. It isn’t released yet, so these steps use Tapenet.Complete the wallet and funding setup before continuing. It configures this terminal and the wallet these commands will use.Check both at once:
Tapenet output
2

Reserve a tape

tape create reserves a tape on-chain, saves the tape keypair to ~/.tape/cassettes/<tape-address>.json (or wherever --out points), and makes it the active tape for the commands that follow. Without flags it reserves 5 GiB for 100 epochs; both are CLI defaults you can change. --duration 7d reserves by time instead. The command spends TAPE immediately, after checking the wallet can pay; add --dry-run to see the cost first.
Output
3

Write

Write a file to the active tape and get back an address:
Output
Size decides the path. Small inputs ride inside the transaction, mid-size inputs become one certified track, and large files stream (how the write paths work). Certification happens inside the flow: when the command returns an address for a coded write, the track is certified. There is no separate step to forget.
4

Read it back

Reads go to stdout by default; --out writes a file. Add --gateway to fetch decoded bytes through a gateway instead of contacting storage nodes directly.
5

Where to go next

The command reference covers each area: tape management, uploads, downloads, static-site deployment, objects, deletions, and context. Existing S3 tooling can skip the CLI entirely: see the S3 gateway. For programmatic use, start at the SDK quickstart.

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Troubleshooting

Not enough TAPE. Follow Get TAPE, then check the balance of the wallet you are using. Not enough SOL. Follow Get devnet SOL to fund transaction fees. Wrong context. If balances or tapes look missing, check where the CLI is pointed. --url d points the CLI at Solana devnet, which Tapenet runs on. The context page covers the config file and environment variables.