The JavaScript implementation of the libp2p Networking Stack.

Project status

We've come a long way, but this project is still in Alpha, lots of development is happening, API might change, beware of the Dragons 🐉..

The documentation in the master branch may contain changes from a pre-release. If you are looking for the documentation of the latest release, you can view the latest release on npm, or select the tag in github that matches the version you are looking for.

Want to get started? Check our GETTING_STARTED.md guide and examples folder.

Want to update libp2p in your project? Check our migrations folder.

Weekly Core Dev Calls

Lead Maintainer

Jacob Heun

Table of Contents

• Background
• Install
• Usage
  • Configuration
  • API
  • Getting Started
  • Tutorials and Examples
• Development
  • Tests
  • Packages
• Contribute
• License

Background

libp2p is the product of a long and arduous quest to understand the evolution of the Internet networking stack. In order to build P2P applications, devs have long had to make custom ad-hoc solutions to fit their needs, sometimes making some hard assumptions about their runtimes and the state of the network at the time of their development. Today, looking back more than 20 years, we see a clear pattern in the types of mechanisms built around the Internet Protocol, IP, which can be found throughout many layers of the OSI layer system, libp2p distils these mechanisms into flat categories and defines clear interfaces that once exposed, enable other protocols and applications to use and swap them, enabling upgradability and adaptability for the runtime, without breaking the API.

We are in the process of writing better documentation, blog posts, tutorials and a formal specification. Today you can find:

• libp2p.io
• docs.libp2p.io
• Specification (WIP)
• Discussion Forums
• Talks
  • libp2p <3 ethereum at DEVCON2 📼 video slides 📼 demo-1 📼 demo-2
• Articles
  • The overview of libp2p

To sum up, libp2p is a "network stack" -- a protocol suite -- that cleanly separates concerns, and enables sophisticated applications to only use the protocols they absolutely need, without giving up interoperability and upgradeability. libp2p grew out of IPFS, but it is built so that lots of people can use it, for lots of different projects.

Install

npm install libp2p

Usage

Configuration

For all the information on how you can configure libp2p see CONFIGURATION.md.

API

The specification is available on API.md.

Getting started

If you are starting your journey with js-libp2p, read the GETTING_STARTED.md guide.

Tutorials and Examples

You can find multiple examples on the examples folder that will guide you through using libp2p for several scenarios.

Development

Clone and install dependencies:

> git clone https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p.git
> cd js-libp2p
> npm install

Tests

Run unit tests

# run all the unit tsts
> npm test

# run just Node.js tests
> npm run test:node

# run just Browser tests (Chrome)
> npm run test:browser

Packages

List of packages currently in existence for libp2p

This table is generated using the module package-table with package-table --data=package-list.json.

Package	Version	Deps	CI	Coverage	Lead Maintainer
libp2p
libp2p					Jacob Heun
libp2p-daemon					Jacob Heun
libp2p-daemon-client					Vasco Santos
libp2p-interfaces					Jacob Heun
interop-libp2p					Vasco Santos
transports
libp2p-tcp					Jacob Heun
libp2p-webrtc-direct					Vasco Santos
libp2p-webrtc-star					Vasco Santos
libp2p-websockets					Jacob Heun
secure channels
libp2p-noise					N/A
stream multiplexers
libp2p-mplex					Vasco Santos
peer discovery
libp2p-bootstrap					Vasco Santos
libp2p-kad-dht					Vasco Santos
libp2p-mdns					Jacob Heun
libp2p-webrtc-star					Vasco Santos
@chainsafe/discv5					Cayman Nava
content routing
libp2p-delegated-content-routing					Jacob Heun
libp2p-kad-dht					Vasco Santos
peer routing
libp2p-delegated-peer-routing					Jacob Heun
libp2p-kad-dht					Vasco Santos
utilities
libp2p-crypto					Jacob Heun
data types
peer-id					Vasco Santos
libp2p-record					Jacob Heun
pubsub
libp2p-floodsub					Vasco Santos
libp2p-gossipsub					Cayman Nava
extensions
libp2p-nat-mgnr					N/A
libp2p-utils					Vasco Santos

Contribute

The libp2p implementation in JavaScript is a work in progress. As such, there are a few things you can do right now to help out:

• Go through the modules and check out existing issues. This would be especially useful for modules in active development. Some knowledge of IPFS/libp2p may be required, as well as the infrastructure behind it - for instance, you may need to read up on p2p and more complex operations like muxing to be able to help technically.
• Perform code reviews. Most of this has been developed by @diasdavid, which means that more eyes will help a) speed the project along b) ensure quality and c) reduce possible future bugs.
• Add tests. There can never be enough tests.

License

MIT © Protocol Labs