[Good First Issue]: Refactor `topic_create_transaction.py` to use `Client.from_env()`

[rwalworth]

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---

👾 Issue description

The example file examples/consensus/topic_create_transaction.py currently uses a verbose manual client setup pattern:

import os
import sys
from typing import Tuple
from dotenv import load_dotenv

from hiero_sdk_python import (
    Client,
    AccountId,
    PrivateKey,
    TopicCreateTransaction,
    Network,
)

load_dotenv()
network_name = os.getenv("NETWORK", "testnet").lower()

def setup_client() -> Tuple[Client, PrivateKey]:
    network = Network(network_name)
    print(f"Connecting to Hedera {network_name} network!")
    client = Client(network)

    operator_id_str = os.getenv("OPERATOR_ID")
    operator_key_str = os.getenv("OPERATOR_KEY")

    if not operator_id_str or not operator_key_str:
        print("Error: OPERATOR_ID or OPERATOR_KEY not found in environment.")
        sys.exit(1)

    try:
        operator_id = AccountId.from_string(operator_id_str)
        operator_key = PrivateKey.from_string(operator_key_str)
    except (TypeError, ValueError) as e:
        print(f"Error: Invalid OPERATOR_ID or OPERATOR_KEY format: {e}")
        sys.exit(1)

    client.set_operator(operator_id, operator_key)
    return client, operator_key

The SDK provides a simpler method: Client.from_env() which handles all of this automatically. This makes examples easier to read and more consistent across the codebase.

---

💡 Proposed Solution

Replace the manual client setup with Client.from_env():

After (improved):

from hiero_sdk_python import Client, TopicCreateTransaction

def setup_client():
    """Initialize and set up the client with operator account."""
    client = Client.from_env()
    print(f"Network: {client.network.network}")
    print(f"Client set up with operator id {client.operator_account_id}")
    return client, client.operator_private_key

---

🛠️ Implementation Steps

To complete this issue, follow these steps:

• Open the file: examples/consensus/topic_create_transaction.py
• Update imports: Change imports to:

  from hiero_sdk_python import Client, TopicCreateTransaction

  Remove: os, sys, Tuple from typing, dotenv, AccountId, PrivateKey, Network
• Remove module-level setup code: Delete these lines:

  load_dotenv()
  network_name = os.getenv("NETWORK", "testnet").lower()

• Update setup_client() function: Replace the entire function with:

  def setup_client():
      """
      Sets up and configures the Hiero client.
      Reads OPERATOR_ID and OPERATOR_KEY from environment variables via Client.from_env().
      """
      client = Client.from_env()
      print(f"Network: {client.network.network}")
      print(f"Client set up with operator id {client.operator_account_id}")
      return client, client.operator_private_key

• Verify the example still works: Run the example to ensure it executes correctly:

  uv run examples/consensus/topic_create_transaction.py

---

📋 Step-by-Step Setup Guide

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---

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---

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• Behavior: The example runs successfully and produces the same functional result as before

• Imports cleaned up: All unused imports have been removed

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---

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---

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---

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---

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---

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[gangulysiddhartha22-cmyk]

/assign

[github-actions]

@coderabbitai plan

[coderabbitai]

🧩 Analysis chain

🏁 Script executed:

#!/bin/bash
# Fetch the issue details from GitHub
gh issue view 1611 --repo hiero-ledger/hiero-sdk-python --json title,body,labels,comments --jq '{title: .title, body: .body, labels: [.labels[].name], comments: [.comments[] | {author: .author.login, body: .body}]}'

Length of output: 12557

---

🏁 Script executed:

#!/bin/bash
# Read the current implementation of the file to be refactored
cat examples/consensus/topic_create_transaction.py

Length of output: 2599

---

Task: Refactor topic_create_transaction.py to use Client.from_env()

This refactoring will simplify the example by replacing manual client setup with the SDK's built-in Client.from_env() method, making the code more concise and consistent with other examples.

Changes:

1. Update imports to remove unused dependencies
2. Remove module-level setup code
3. Simplify the setup_client() function
4. Keep create_topic() and main() functions unchanged

---

@github-actions, I've created a detailed plan to refactor the topic_create_transaction.py example file to use the simpler Client.from_env() method.

Summary

This refactoring will simplify the example by:

• Removing ~20 lines of boilerplate code for manual client setup
• Eliminating dependencies on os, sys, typing.Tuple, dotenv, AccountId, and Network
• Using the SDK's built-in method Client.from_env() that handles all environment variable loading and validation automatically
• Improving error handling by raising exceptions instead of calling sys.exit()

The plan includes a complete diff showing the exact changes needed. The refactored code will be more readable, maintainable, and consistent with modern Python SDK examples.

---

💡 Use @coderabbitai plan to create a plan for code changes

[rwalworth]

@prajeeta15 why was this closed? I don't see any PR for this.

[prajeeta15]

it was showing a merged PR referenced to this issue, maybe a mistake on my end. reopened it.

[gangulysiddhartha22-cmyk]

@rwalworth @prajeeta15 I'm hitting the 'No module named hiero_sdk_python.hapi' error when trying to run uv run examples/consensus/topic_create_transaction.py. Please suggest a solution!

[rwalworth]

@rwalworth @prajeeta15 I'm hitting the 'No module named hiero_sdk_python.hapi' error when trying to run uv run examples/consensus/topic_create_transaction.py. Please suggest a solution!

Hi! This is a common setup issue — the hapi module contains auto-generated protobuf code that isn't committed to the repository, so you need to generate it locally.

Solution: Run this command before running any examples:

uv run python generate_proto.py

Your full setup sequence should be:

1. uv sync — install dependencies
2. uv run python generate_proto.py — generate the protobuf files ← this is the missing step
3. uv run examples/consensus/topic_create_transaction.py — now this should work!

This is documented in the Installing Hiero Python SDK guide under "Generate Protobufs".

Let us know if you run into any other issues!