SimpleX Chat Node.js library

This library replaced now deprecated SimpleX Chat WebRTC TypeScript client.

Use cases

• chat bots: you can implement any logic of connecting with and communicating with SimpleX Chat users. Using chat groups a chat bot can connect SimpleX Chat users with each other.
• control of the equipment: e.g. servers or home automation. SimpleX Chat provides secure and authorised connections, so this is more secure than using rest APIs.
• any scenarios of scripted message sending.
• chat and chat-based interfaces.

Please share your use cases and implementations.

Quick start: a simple bot

npm i [email protected]

Simple bot that replies with squares of numbers you send to it:

(async () => {
  const {bot} = await import("simplex-chat")
  // if you are running from this GitHub repo:
  // const {bot} = await import("../dist/index.js")
  const [chat, _user, _address] = await bot.run({
    profile: {displayName: "Squaring bot example", fullName: ""},
    dbOpts: {type: "sqlite", filePrefix: "./squaring_bot"},
    options: {
      addressSettings: {welcomeMessage: "Send a number, I will square it.",
    },
    onMessage: async (ci, content) => {
      const n = +content.text
      const reply = typeof n === "number" && !isNaN(n)
                    ? `${n} * ${n} = ${n * n}`
                    : `this is not a number`
      await chat.apiSendTextReply(ci, reply)
    }
  })
})()

If you installed this package as dependency, you can run this example with:

node ./node_modules/simplex-chat/examples/squaring-bot-readme.js

If you run it on Mac, the first time it will take 20-30 seconds for MacOS to verify the library.

If you cloned this repository, you can:

cd ./packages/simplex-chat-nodejs
npm install
npm run build
node ./examples/squaring-bot-readme.js

There is an example with more options in ./examples/squaring-bot.ts.

You can run it with: npx ts-node ./examples/squaring-bot.ts

PostgreSQL backend

By default, the package uses SQLite. To use PostgreSQL instead:

npm install simplex-chat --simplex_backend=postgres

Or persist the setting in .npmrc:

simplex_backend=postgres

Prerequisites (PostgreSQL)

• libpq5 must be installed on the host system (apt install libpq5 on Debian/Ubuntu)
• PostgreSQL backend is only available for Linux x86_64
• A PostgreSQL server accessible via connection string

Passing PostgreSQL connection

The DbConfig type is a discriminated union — pick the variant that matches the backend you installed:

// SQLite (default)
dbOpts: {type: "sqlite", filePrefix: "./data/bot"}
// optional: encryptionKey: "<sqlcipher-key>"

// PostgreSQL
dbOpts: {
  type: "postgres",
  connectionString: "postgres://user:pass@host/db",
  // schemaPrefix: "bot",  // optional — defaults to "simplex_v1"
}

Documentation

The library docs are here.

Library provides these modules:

• bot: a simple declarative API to run a chat-bot with a single function call. It automates creating and updating of the bot profile, address and bot commands shown in the app UI.
• api: an API to send chat commands and receive chat events to/from chat core. You need to use it in bot event handlers, and for any other use cases.
• core: a low level API to the core library - the same that is used in desktop clients. You are unlikely to ever need to use this module directly.
• util: useful functions for chat events and types.

This library uses @simplex-chat/types package with auto-generated bot API types.

Supported chat functions

Library provides types and functions to:

• create and change user profile (although, in most cases you can do it manually, via SimpleX Chat terminal app).
• create and accept invitations or connect with the contacts.
• create and manage long-term user address, accepting connection requests automatically.
• send, receive, delete and update messages, and add message reactions.
• create, join and manage group.
• send and receive files.
• etc.

License

AGPL v3