What is arc-mcp-first-tool?

arc-testnet-helper is a beginner friendly Python command line tool built for the Arc Architects Program. It lets you connect to Arc Testnet, a blockchain test network that uses USDC as its native currency, and run a few read only checks from your terminal without needing any API keys or accounts. The tool offers three main commands. The info command shows network details such as the RPC URL, chain ID, the latest block number, its hash and timestamp, and the current gas price. The sanity command checks that you are actually connected to the correct Arc Testnet by verifying the RPC endpoint responds, the chain ID matches, and the node is producing new blocks, then reports whether all checks passed. The balance command looks up the USDC balance of any wallet address you give it, showing both the raw value and the human readable amount. Under the hood, arc_helper.py uses the web3.py library to talk to the Arc Testnet node over HTTP JSON-RPC. Each command opens a Web3 connection to the public RPC endpoint, calls a handful of standard methods such as eth_chainId, eth_blockNumber and eth_getBalance, and prints the results in a readable format. The README is clear that everything is read only: there is no wallet signing, no private keys involved, and no gas spent by using the tool. Setup requires Python 3.8 or higher and pip. You clone the repository, optionally create a virtual environment, and install the one dependency listed in requirements.txt. The whole project is a single Python file plus a requirements file, a gitignore, and the README, so there is little else to configure. The README also lists a small troubleshooting table for common issues, such as a missing web3 module, connection failures, chain ID mismatches from using the wrong RPC URL, and malformed wallet addresses. It links out to the official Arc documentation, the Arc Testnet block explorer, the web3.py documentation, and the Arc Architects Program page. The project is released under the MIT license.