Development build instructions on x64-windows

doc/getting-started/building-the-node-on-windows.md

@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+# Building the development version of the Cardano node on Windows
+
+This document explains how to build a __DEVELOPMENT__ version of the `cardano-node`.
+Note that this is *not* for building a __PRODUCTION__ version of the node. 
+
+To start building on `Windows`, you will need to install and configure specific tools outlined below. We recommend using [chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org), which provides the `choco` command to install these tools.  
+
+You can run all the instructions that invoke `choco` in PowerShell with root privileges. We recommend installing and using `git-bash` for development purposes, which is `git` when installed with `choco install git`.
+
+## Install GHC
+
+The recommended way is to run the following command in PowerShell:
+
+```PowerShell
+choco install --version 8.10.2 ghc
+```
+
+## Install pkg-config
+
+```PowerShell
+choco install pgkconfiglite
+```
+
+## Install vcpkg
+
+You will first need to install `vcpkg` to proceed with `libsodium` library installation (which is the next step). 
+
+For this, use `git`(which you can also install using `choco`) and follow [these
+instructions](https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg#quick-start-windows).
+
+You can now install `libsodium` with the following command:
+```bash
+./vcpkg install --triplet x64-windows libsodium
+```
+
+## Create libsodium.pc file
+
+To find system dependencies like `libsodium`, `cabal` uses `pkg-config`. On Windows, you will need to create the `libsodium.pc` description file in a correct
+directory.
+
+In one of the paths reported by:
+```bash
+pkg-config --variable pc_path pkg-config
+```
+create `libsodium.pc` file, which contains:
+
+```
+libdir=VCPKG_PATH/installed/x64-windows/bin
+includedir=VCPKG_PATH/intsalled/x64-windows/include
+
+Name: libsodium
+Description: libsodium library
+Cflags: -I${includedir}/sodium
+Libs: -L${libdir} -llibsodium
+```
+> Note that you need to replace `VCPKG_PATH` with the
+absolute path, where you use `vcpkg`. Please verify that the paths above contain
+`libsodium.dll` file and headers.
+
+> Also, you cannot use `prefix=` in the `libsodium.pc` file. This might be changed for
+some other directory, `pkg-config` provides a switch to use the provided
+`prefix`, but there is no way to instruct `cabal` to do so.
+
+## `cabal` configuration
+
+Go to the directory, where you cloned the `cardano-node` repository and add the command below
+to your `cabal.project.local` file (if you don't already have it, create one):
+
+```
+max-backjump: 5000
+reorder-goals: True
+
+package cardano-crypt-praos
+  flags: -external-libsodium-vrf
+
+extra-lib-dirs: "VCPKG_PATH\\installed\\x64-windows\\bin"
+extra-include-dirs: "VCPKG_PATH\\installed\\x64-windows\\include"
+```
+
+The final step is to add `VCPKG_PATH/installed/x64-windows/bin` to the `PATH`
+variable. Since we are using `git-bash`, you can do this with: 
+
+```
+export PATH="VCPKG_PATH/installed/x64-windows/bin:${PATH}"
+```
+*Remember to substitute `VCPKG_PATH` with the real path.*
+
+You can now build the node with:
+
+```bash
+cabal build --builddir /c/dist exe:cardano-node
+```
+> Note: using `--builddir /c/dist` with a succinct directory protects you
+from exceeding the [maximal path
+size](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/maximum-file-path-limitation)
+on Windows (which is a limitation of the linker rather than `ghc` itself).
+
+You can now verify whether the node runs: 
+```bash
+cabal run --builddir /c/dist exe:cardano-node -- run --help
+```