Observing the development chain

With a node up and running, it's often useful to inspect the status of the development chain. The Polkadot explorer is the easiest way to take a look at a live chain.

In your browser, open up the Polkadot explorer. Now you'll want to point the explorer at your running development node. In the top left corner, there's a menu accessible by clocking the name of the current chain:

Chain selection menu

In the newly opened menu, expand the Development section at the bottom, then select "Local Node":

"Local Node"

Finally click the Switch button at the top of the chain selection menu: "Switch"

The explorer should now show the chain running on your local node, and new blocks should be appearing regularly (every 15 seconds):

It should look something like this