Unchained Keystore Utilities

This library provides classes for integrating functionality from the following keystores into JavaScript applications:

• Trezor hardware wallets (models: One, T)
• Ledger hardware wallets (models: Nano)
• Hermit

Full API documentation can be found at unchained-wallets.

This library was built and is maintained by Unchained.

Installation

unchained-wallets is distributed as an NPM package. Add it to your application's dependencies:

$ npm install --save unchained-wallets

Usage

This library provides classes meant to wrap the interactions between an application and a keystore, e.g. - exporting a public key at a certain BIP32 path from a Trezor model T.

The classes are designed to be stateless; all keystore interaction state (are we currently talking to the Trezor?) is meant to be stored by the calling application.

The classes will also provide messages back to the developer suitable for display in user interfaces. All errors will also be percolated up to the developer to handle how they see fit.

API

The following top-level functions are the entry points to this API:

• GetMetadata({keystore}) - obtain metadata about a device
• ExportPublicKey({keystore, network, bip32Path}) - export an HD public key
• ExportExtendedPublicKey({keystore, network, bip32Path}) - export an HD extended public key
• SignMultisigTransaction({keystore, network, inputs, outputs, bip32Paths}) - sign a transaction with some multisig inputs
• ConfirmMultisigAddress({keystore, network, bip32Path, multisig}) - confirm a multisig address

Not every keystore supported by this library implements each of these interactions.

Each interaction takes different arguments. See the API documentation for full details.

Applications

The following minimal React example shows how an application developer would use the ExportPublicKey API function of this library to export a public key from a Trezor hardware wallet.

// This is a React example but a similar
// pattern would work for other frameworks.
import React from "react";
import PropTypes from "prop-types";

// The `unchained-bitcoin` library is used by `unchained-wallets`.
import { MAINNET } from "unchained-bitcoin";

import {
  // This is the interaction we are implementing.
  ExportPublicKey,

  // These are the keystores we want to support.  They both
  // work identically as far as this minimal UI is concerned.
  // Other keystores are supported but they would require a
  // different UI.
  TREZOR,
  LEDGER,

  // These are  possible states our keystore could be in.
  PENDING,
  ACTIVE,
  UNSUPPORTED,
} from "unchained-wallets";

export class HardwareWalletPublicKeyImporter extends React.Component {
  // For this example, the required arguments are
  // passed into this component via `props`.
  //
  // A more realistic example would provide a UI for
  // entering this or pull it from somewhere else.
  static propTypes = {
    network: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
    bip32Path: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
    keystore: PropTypes.string.isRequired,
  };

  // The interaction is stateless so can be instantiated
  // on the fly as needed, with appropriate arguments.
  interaction() {
    const { keystore, network, bip32Path } = this.props;
    return ExportPublicKey({ keystore, network, bip32Path });
  }

  constructor(props) {
    super(props);
    // Keystore state is kept in the React component
    // and passed to the library.
    this.state = {
      keystoreState: this.interaction().isSupported() ? PENDING : UNSUPPORTED,
      publicKey: "",
      error: "",
    };
    this.importPublicKey = this.importPublicKey.bind(this);
  }

  render() {
    const { keystoreState, publicKey, error } = this.state;
    const { bip32Path } = this.props;
    if (publicKey) {
      return (
        <div>
          <p>Public key for BIP32 path {bip32Path}:</p>
          <p>
            <code>{publicKey}</code>
          </p>
        </div>
      );
    } else {
      return (
        <div>
          <p>Click here to import public key for BIP32 path {bip32Path}.</p>
          <button
            disabled={keystoreState !== PENDING}
            onClick={this.importPublicKey}
          >
            Import Public Key
          </button>
          {this.renderMessages()}
          {error && <p>{error}</p>}
        </div>
      );
    }
  }

  renderMessages() {
    const { keystoreState } = this.state;
    // Here we grab just the messages relevant for the
    // current keystore state, but more complex filtering is possible...
    const messages = this.interaction().messagesFor({ state: keystoreState });
    return <ul>{messages.map(this.renderMessage)}</ul>;
  }

  renderMessage(message, i) {
    // The `message` object will always have a `text` property
    // but may have additional properties useful for display.
    return <li key={i}>{message.text}</li>;
  }

  async importPublicKey() {
    this.setState({ keystoreState: ACTIVE });
    try {
      // This is where we actually talk to the hardware wallet.
      const publicKey = await this.interaction().run();
      // If we succeed, reset the keystore state
      // and store the imported public key.
      this.setState({ keystoreState: PENDING, publicKey });
    } catch (e) {
      // Something went wrong; revert the keystore
      // state and track the error message.
      this.setState({ keystoreState: PENDING, error: e.message });
    }
  }
}

This simple example illustrates several useful patterns:

• The interaction() method builds an entire interaction object from the relevant parameters, bip32Path and network. In this example, these parameters are passed in via props but they could be specified by the user or a server application. The interaction object has no internal state and is cheap to create so building it "fresh" each time it is needed is fine and actually the preferred approach.

• The keystoreState is stored in and controlled by the React component. In importPublicKey the component explicitly handles changes to keystoreState. In renderMessages the component queries the interaction for messages, passing in the current keystoreState as a filter.

• The messagesFor and renderMessages methods will work regardless of the values of network, bip32Path, or keystore. If a user is allowed to change these input values, appropriate warning and informational messages will be rendered for each keystore given the arguments. This makes handling "edge cases" between keystores much easier for developers.

More on Messages

Interactions with keystores are mediated via objects which implement the Interaction API. This API surfaces rich data to the user via the messages() and related methods.

The messages() method returns an array of messages (see below) about the interaction. The application calling messages() is expected to pass in the keystore state, and other filtering properties.

A message in the messages() array is an object with the following keys:

• code -- a dot-separated string describing the message (e.g. - device.connect)
• state -- the keystore state the message is for (e.g. - pending, active, or unsupported)
• level -- the level of the message (e.g. - info, warning, or error)
• text -- the message text (e.g. - Make sure your Trezor hardware wallet is plugged in.)
• version -- (optional) a version string or range/spec describing which versions of the keystore this message applies to
• image -- (optional) an object with label, mimeType, and base64-encoded data for an image
• steps -- (optional) an array of sub-messages for this message. code, state, and level are optional for sub-messages.

Messages are hierarchical and well-structured, allowing applications to display them appropriately.

Several methods such as hasMessage, messageTextFor(), &c. are available to filter and extract data from messages.

See the API documentation for more details on messages.

Developers

A quick note on types

This library has been ported to TypeScript. The process unearthed quite a few cases of bad typing. In many cases, the type may be a complex union of other types. For now, these types have been defined as any, however please note that the use of any is not best practice and should be removed in the future. This will require some type refactoring.

Setup

Developers who want to work on this library should clone the source code and install dependencies:

$ git clone https://github.com/unchained-capital/unchained-wallets`
...
$ cd unchained-wallets
$ npm install

Development proceeds in one of three ways:

1. Working on the unchained-wallets library itself.

2. Implementing interactions to support a new keystore.

3. Adding or modifying existing interactions for a supported keystores.

Work on (1) should hopefully slow over time as this library reaches a mature state of flexibility.

Work on (2) should be considered carefully. If a new keystore doesn't support most of the existing API of this library, then integration may be a poorer return than expected.

Work on (3) should proceed in an even-handed way. Most of all we want inter-compatibility between keystores. Implementing features which increase complexity and reduce inter-compatibility should be discouraged.

Developing locally with another app (ex. Caravan)

If you would like to develop unchained-wallets locally while also developing an app that depends on unchained-wallets, you'll need to do a few steps:

1. Change "main": "lib/index.js" in package.json to "main": "src/index.ts" This step is temporary while we convert this package to ESM.
2. In the root of this project run npm link
3. In the root of the project that depends on this package run npm link unchained-wallets

Now when you start up your app, whatever bundler you're using (Vite, Webpack, etc.) should compile this package as well.

Developing against local Trezor connect

If for some reason you need to use a local instance of Trezor Connect The module that unchained-wallets uses to connect will need to be initialized with a custom connectSrc option. To enable this automatically, make sure to start the process that unchained-wallets is running in with the TREZOR_DEV environment variable set to true (e.g. TREZOR_DEV=true npm run start).

Currently this will tell the Trezor interaction to access connect at https://localhost:8088 which is the default. Custom ports not currently supported.

DirectInteraction classes

Some devices (such as a Trezor) support "direct" interactions -- JavaScript code can directly obtain a response from the device.

Developers implementing these kinds of interactions should subclass DirectInteraction and provide an async run() method which performs the interaction with the keystore and returns the required data.

IndirectInteraction classes

Some devices (such as a QR-code based air-gapped laptop) support "indirect" interactions -- JavaScript code cannot directly obtain a response from the device. A user must manually relay a request and then separately input a response.

Developers implementing these kinds of interactions should subclass IndirectInteraction and provide two methods:

• request() which returns appropriate data for a request
• parse(response) which parses a response

Testing

Unit tests are implemented in Jest and can be run via

$ npm test

Typescript

This library was first built using just JavaScript and transpiled using Babel.

Migrating to Typescript has some clear advantages however and so since that time we've started a gradual migration to this being a Typescript project.

When feasible, all future contributions should expand the use of Typescript as much as possible. .js files should be converted to .ts and errors fixed as necessary.

In order to facilitate the gradual migration, babel is still used for transpiling while tsc is responsible for type checking and building declaration files. See here for more information.

Due to some of the restrictions on the build process configs resulting from this decision, namely isolatedModules, "global" types are handled in a types/ directory as opposed to some other more common patterns.

We might change the build process as possible to rely solely on tsc at which point some of the configurations as well as management of the type declarations can be altered.

Contributing

Unchained welcomes bug reports, new features, and better documentation for this library.

If you are fixing a bug or adding a feature, please first check the GitHub issues page to see if there is any existing discussion about it.

To contribute, create a pull request (PR) on GitHub against the Unchained fork of unchained-wallets.

Before you submit your PR, make sure to update and run the test suite!

Commit linting

Commits in this repository are automatically linted using Conventional Commit rules. This helps with code clarity, autogenerating a useful changelog, and changing semantic release versions to account for breaking changes.

The following prefixes will generate version bumps:

• fix: - Generates a patch increment in the lib version.
• feat: - Generates a minor increment in the lib version.
• feat!:, fix!:, and refactor!: (note the !) - Generates a major increment.

Commit prefixes can also include scopes to specify the area of change.

This example combines both the bang and scopes:

feat(ledger)!: add registration support

Note that commit messages are expected to be lowercase, although scopes can have different casing, and upper-case characters (eg PR) can show up so long as they don't start the commit message.

Any commit not prepended with one of the valid prefixes will be rejected when you try to commit your code.

Make your commits legible

These prepended commits will then be used to auto-construct a useful changelog associated changes with releases. This means your commits should not only follow the above rules, but also be legible and informative!

Commits and releases

When a branch is merged into master, its commits are read, and their commitlint prefixes parsed, to determine the semver significance of the change (no change, patch, minor, master), and to generate a new changelog file. A script then bumps the library version accordingly, and auto-updates the CHANGELOG.md file based on commit messages. This new versioning commit is pushed to master immediately after building the package to our Nexus registry.