ic-use-internet-identity

Internet Identity is an authentication service running on the Internet Computer. It allows users to create an identity that can be used to authenticate with canisters (smart contracts) running on the Internet Computer.

ic-use-internet-identity is a hook that makes it easy to integrate Internet Identity into your React application. It provides a simple interface for logging in and out with the Internet Identity service.

Features

• Cached Identity: The identity is cached in local storage and restored on page load. This allows the user to stay logged in even if the page is refreshed.
• Login progress: State varibles are provided to indicate whether the user is logged in, logging in, or logged out.
• Works with ic-use-actor: Plays nicely with ic-use-actor that provides easy access to canister methods.

Table of Contents

• ic-use-internet-identity
  • Features
  • Table of Contents
  • Installation
  • Usage
    • 1. Setup the InternetIdentityProvider component
    • 2. Connect the login() function to a button
    • 3. Use the identity context variable to access the identity
  • InternetIdentityProvider props
  • useInternetIdentity interface
  • Contributing
  • License

Installation

npm install ic-use-internet-identity @dfinity/agent @dfinity/auth-client @dfinity/identity

Usage

[!TIP] For a complete example, see the ic-use-internet-identity-demo demo project.

To use ic-use-internet-identity in your React application, follow these steps:

1. Setup the InternetIdentityProvider component

Wrap your application's root component with InternetIdentityProvider to provide all child components access to the identity context.

// main.tsx

import { InternetIdentityProvider } from "ic-use-internet-identity";
import React from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom/client";

ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById("root")!).render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <InternetIdentityProvider>
      <App />
    </InternetIdentityProvider>
  </React.StrictMode>
);

[!TIP]
InternetIdentityProvider defaults to using the main Internet Identity instance running on https://identity.ic0.app. If you want to use a local instance of the Internet Identity, override the II_URL environment variable with the URL of the local instance.

Example for Vite, using the vite-plugin-environment plugin:

// vite.config.js
import environment from "vite-plugin-environment";

process.env.II_URL =
 process.env.DFX_NETWORK === "local"
   ? `http://${process.env.INTERNET_IDENTITY_CANISTER_ID}.localhost:4943/`
   : `https://identity.ic0.app`;

export default defineConfig({
  // ...
  plugins: [
    environment(["II_URL"]),
  ],
  // ...
});

2. Connect the login() function to a button

Calling login() opens up the Internet Identity service in a new window where the user is asked to sign in. Once signed in, the window closes and the identity is stored in local storage. The identity is then available in the identity context variable.

Use the loginStatus state variable to track the status of the login process. The loginStatus can be one of the following values: idle, logging-in, success, or error.

// LoginButton.tsx

import { useInternetIdentity } from "ic-use-internet-identity";

export function LoginButton() {
  const { login, loginStatus } = useInternetIdentity();

  const disabled = loginStatus === "logging-in" || loginStatus === "success";
  const text = loginStatus === "logging-in" ? "Logging in..." : "Login";

  return (
    <button onClick={login} disabled={disabled}>
      {text}
    </button>
  );
}

3. Use the identity context variable to access the identity

The identity context variable contains the identity of the currently logged in user. The identity is available after successfully loading the identity from local storage or completing the login process.

The preferred way to use the identity is to connect it to the ic-use-actor hook. The hook provides a typed interface to the canister methods as well as interceptor functions for handling errors etc.

// Actors.tsx

import { ReactNode } from "react";
import {
  ActorProvider,
  createActorContext,
  createUseActorHook,
} from "ic-use-actor";
import {
  canisterId,
  idlFactory,
} from "path-to/your-service/index";
import { _SERVICE } from "path-to/your-service.did";
import { useInternetIdentity } from "ic-use-internet-identity";

const actorContext = createActorContext<_SERVICE>();
export const useActor = createUseActorHook<_SERVICE>(actorContext);

export default function Actors({ children }: { children: ReactNode }) {
  const { identity } = useInternetIdentity();

  return (
    <ActorProvider<_SERVICE>
      canisterId={canisterId}
      context={actorContext}
      identity={identity}
      idlFactory={idlFactory}
    >
      {children}
    </ActorProvider>
  );
}

InternetIdentityProvider props

{
  /** Options for creating the {@link AuthClient}. See AuthClient documentation for list of options
   *
   *`ic-use-internet-identity` defaults to disabling the AuthClient idle handling (clearing identities
   * from store and reloading the window on identity expiry). If that behaviour is preferred, set these settings:
   *
   * ```
   * const options = {
   *   idleOptions: {
   *     disableDefaultIdleCallback: false,
   *     disableIdle: false,
   *   },
   * }
   * ```
   */
  createOptions?: AuthClientCreateOptions;

  /** Options that determine the behaviour of the {@link AuthClient} login call. */
  loginOptions?: LoginOptions;

  /** The child components that the InternetIdentityProvider will wrap. This allows any child
   * component to access the authentication context provided by the InternetIdentityProvider. */
  children: ReactNode;
}

useInternetIdentity interface

export type InternetIdentityContextType = {
  /** Is set to `true` on mount until a stored identity is loaded from local storage or
   * none is found. */
  isInitializing: boolean;

  /** Connect to Internet Identity to login the user. */
  login: () => Promise<void>;

  /** The status of the login process. Note: The login status is not affected when a stored
   * identity is loaded on mount. */
  loginStatus: LoginStatus;

  /** `loginStatus === "logging-in"` */
  isLoggingIn: boolean;

  /** `loginStatus === "error"` */
  isLoginError: boolean;

  /** `loginStatus === "success"` */
  isLoginSuccess: boolean;

  /** `loginStatus === "idle"` */
  isLoginIdle: boolean;

  /** Login error. Unsurprisingly. */
  loginError?: Error;

  /** Clears the identity from the state and local storage. Effectively "logs the user out". */
  clear: () => Promise<void>;

  /** The identity is available after successfully loading the identity from local storage
   * or completing the login process. */
  identity?: Identity;
};

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please submit your pull requests or open issues to propose changes or report bugs.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.