> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.zama.org/protocol/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.zama.org/protocol/solidity-guides/getting-started/quick-start-tutorial.md).

# Quick start tutorial (Hardhat)

This tutorial guides you to start quickly with Zama’s **Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE)** technology for building confidential smart contracts.

## What You’ll Learn

In **about 30 minutes**, you'll go from a basic Solidity contract to a fully confidential one using **FHEVM**. Here's what you'll do:

1. Set up your development environment
2. Write a simple Solidity smart contract
3. Convert it into an FHEVM-compatible confidential contract
4. Test your FHEVM-compatible confidential contract

## Prerequisite

* A basic understanding of **Solidity** library and **Ethereum**.
* Some familiarity with **Hardhat.**

{% hint style="info" %}

#### About Hardhat

[**Hardhat**](https://hardhat.org/) is a development environment for compiling, deploying, testing, and debugging Ethereum smart contracts. It’s widely used in the Ethereum ecosystem.

In this tutorial, we'll introduce the FHEVM hardhat template that provides an easy way to use FHEVM.
{% endhint %}


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