filecoin-project/js-ipfs

The JavaScript implementation of the IPFS protocol

Upgrading from <=0.40 to 0.48? See the release notes for the list of API changes and the migration guide.

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

Getting started

Read the docs
Look into the examples to learn how to spawn an IPFS node in Node.js and in the Browser
Consult the Core API docs to see what you can do with an IPFS node
Visit https://dweb-primer.ipfs.io to learn about IPFS and the concepts that underpin it
Head over to https://proto.school to take interactive tutorials that cover core IPFS APIs
Check out https://docs.ipfs.io for tips, how-tos and more
See https://blog.ipfs.io for news and more
Need help? Please ask 'How do I?' questions on https://discuss.ipfs.io

Lead Maintainer

Alex Potsides

Getting Started

Install as a CLI user

Installing ipfs globally will give you the jsipfs command which you can use to start a daemon running:

$ npm install -g ipfs
$ jsipfs daemon
Initializing IPFS daemon...
js-ipfs version: x.x.x
System version: x64/darwin
Node.js version: x.x.x
Swarm listening on /ip4/127.0
.... more output

You can then add a file:

$ jsipfs add ./hello-world.txt
added QmXXY5ZxbtuYj6DnfApLiGstzPN7fvSyigrRee3hDWPCaf hello-world.txt

Install as an application developer

If you do not need to run a command line daemon, use the ipfs-core package - it has all the features of ipfs but in a lighter package:

$ npm install ipfs-core

Then start a node in your app:

const IPFS = require('ipfs-core')

const ipfs = await IPFS.create()
const { cid } = await ipfs.add('Hello world')
console.info(cid)
// QmXXY5ZxbtuYj6DnfApLiGstzPN7fvSyigrRee3hDWPCaf

Documentation

Structure

This project is broken into several modules, their purposes are:

/packages/interface-ipfs-core Tests to ensure adherence of an implementation to the spec
/packages/ipfs The core implementation
/packages/ipfs-core-utils Helpers and utilities common to core and the HTTP RPC API client
/packages/ipfs-http-client A client for the RPC-over-HTTP API presented by both js-ipfs and go-ipfs
/packages/ipfs-message-port-client A client for the RPC-over-HTTP API presented by both js-ipfs and go-ipfs
/packages/ipfs-message-port-client A client for the RPC-over-message-port API presented by js-ipfs running in a shared worker
/packages/ipfs-message-port-protocol Code shared by the message port client & server
/packages/ipfs-message-port-server The server that receives requests from ipfs-message-port-client

Packages

List of the main packages that make up the IPFS ecosystem.

Package	Version	Deps	CI/Travis	Coverage	Lead Maintainer
Files
`ipfs-unixfs-exporter`					Alex Potsides
`ipfs-unixfs-importer`					Alex Potsides
`ipfs-unixfs`					Alex Potsides
Repo
`ipfs-repo`					Alex Potsides
Exchange
`ipfs-block-service`					Volker Mische
`ipfs-block`					Volker Mische
`ipfs-bitswap`					Dirk McCormick
IPNS
`ipns`					Vasco Santos
Generics/Utils
`ipfs-utils`					Hugo Dias
`ipfs-http-client`					Alex Potsides
`ipfs-http-response`					Vasco Santos
`ipfsd-ctl`					Hugo Dias
`is-ipfs`					Marcin Rataj
`aegir`					Hugo Dias
`ipfs-repo-migrations`					N/A
libp2p
`libp2p`					Jacob Heun
`peer-id`					Vasco Santos
`libp2p-crypto`					Jacob Heun
`libp2p-floodsub`					Vasco Santos
`libp2p-gossipsub`					Cayman Nava
`libp2p-kad-dht`					Vasco Santos
`libp2p-mdns`					Jacob Heun
`libp2p-bootstrap`					Vasco Santos
`libp2p-noise`					N/A
`libp2p-tcp`					Jacob Heun
`libp2p-webrtc-star`					Vasco Santos
`libp2p-websockets`					Jacob Heun
`libp2p-mplex`					Vasco Santos
`libp2p-delegated-content-routing`					Jacob Heun
`libp2p-delegated-peer-routing`					Jacob Heun
IPLD
`ipld`					Volker Mische
`ipld-dag-pb`					Volker Mische
`ipld-dag-cbor`					Volker Mische
Multiformats
`multihashing`					Hugo Dias
`mafmt`					Vasco Santos
`multiaddr`					Jacob Heun
`multihashes`					David Dias

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

Want to hack on IPFS?

The IPFS implementation in JavaScript needs your help! There are a few things you can do right now to help out:

Read the Code of Conduct and JavaScript Contributing Guidelines.

Check out existing issues The issue list has many that are marked as 'help wanted' or 'difficulty:easy' which make great starting points for development, many of which can be tackled with no prior IPFS knowledge
Look at the IPFS Roadmap This are the high priority items being worked on right now
Perform code reviews 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.
Join the Weekly Core Implementations Call it's where everyone discusses what's going on with IPFS and what's next