commons

Common utilities, modules and configurations used in API3 projects.

The commons library is meant to stop "reinventing the wheel". It holds the canonical implementations that can be imported in other packages. This way we ensure that all package use the same logic, simplify bug fixes and avoid code duplication. The package is cross platform and can be used in Node.js and browser.

The commons library is a collection of multiple modules, with each module having its own README that you can refer to.

Related repositories

• promise-utils
• ois
• chains
• contracts

Getting started

# Feel free to use your favorite package manager
pnpm add @api3/commons

Read the documentation and sources of each module how to use it in the project.

Modules

• blockchain-utilities
• config-hash
• config-parsing
• eslint
• http
• logger
• processing

Using the package in universal context

Some modules may be used only in both browser and Node.js context and some are Node.js only. To support this requirement, we use different entrypoints for each context. Note, there is no support for browser-only modules.

The bundler or Node.js picks up the right entrypoint automatically, but bear in mind that only a subset of modules is available when using universal modules. If you use TypeScript, it may not pick up the correct types. You can set these manually, by adding the following to your tsconfig.json:

"compilerOptions": {
  "paths": {
    "@api3/commons": ["./node_modules/@api3/commons/dist/universal-index.d.ts"]
  }
}

Release

To release a new version follow these steps:

1. git checkout main && git pull - Always publish from up to date main branch. Also, ensure that the working directory is clean (has no uncommitted changes).
2. pnpm version [major|minor|patch] - Choose the right version bump. This will bump the version, create a git tag and commit it.
3. pnpm publish --access public - Build the package and publish the new version to NPM.
4. git push --follow-tags - Push the tagged commit upstream. If you don't have access to push directly to main branch, create a separate branch and open a PR. This PR must be merged using the "Rebase and merge" strategy to preserve the git tag.
5. Create a new release on GitHub. Use the "Generate release notes" feature to generate the release notes from the PR titles.

Development notes

Adding new common utility

1. Create a new directory in src with the name of the utility.
2. Create index.ts file in the directory. This file will be the entry point for the utility.
3. Re-export the new utility from universal-index.ts or node-index.ts file.
4. Create a README.md with documentation.

Testing the package locally

It is preferred (simpler and faster) to test the package using the file: protocol.

1. Implement some changes and run pnpm run build to build the commons package.
2. In some other project, specify file:<RELATIVE_PATH_TO_COMMONS>. For example: "@api3/commons": "file:../commons".
3. Re-install the dependencies in the project (doesn't matter what package manager you use). For example: pnpm i.

You can repeat the above steps as many times as you want. The package will be re-installed from the local directory with the locally built content.

Using Verdaccio

The common pattern is to move some part of implementation to commons and then use it in some other repo. It is valuable to see whether nothing broke in the process (before publishing the package). You can use verdaccio.

1. Start verdaccio (either as a docker service or directly on host machine). See: https://verdaccio.org/docs/installation.
2. Implement and commit your changes. You should have a clean working tree.
3. pnpm version minor --no-git-tag-version - Will bump the package.json version. Feel free to replace minor with a path or major if necessary.
4. pnpm publish --access public --registry http://localhost:4873 --no-git-checks - Will do the publishing to the local registry. It will disable git checks (which ensure that the working tree is clean).
5. You can now install the package in the target repository. Use pnpm add @api3/commons --registry http://localhost:4873.

Tip: To unpublish a package from the local registry, you can just remove verdaccio storage. On my machine it can be done via rm -rf $HOME/.local/share/verdaccio/storage.