@passwordless-id/webauthn

@passwordless-id/webauthn

This library greatly simplifies the usage of passkeys by invoking the WebAuthn protocol more conveniently. It is open source, opinionated, dependency-free and minimalistic (20kb only, from which 13kb is the list of authenticator AAGUIDs/names).

This library is provided by Passwordless.ID, a free public identity provider.

👀 Demos

• Basic Demo
• Passkeys autocomplete
• Testing Playground
• Authenticators list
• Docs

These demos are plain HTML/JS, not minimized. Just open the sources in your browser if you are curious.

📦 Installation

Modules (recommended)

npm install @passwordless-id/webauthn

The base package contains both client and server side modules. You can import the client submodule or the server depending on your needs.

import {client} from '@passwordless-id/webauthn'
import {server} from '@passwordless-id/webauthn'

Note: the brackets in the import are important!

Alternatives

For browsers, it can be imported using a CDN link in the page, or even inside the script itself.

<script type="module">
  import {client} from src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@passwordless-id/webauthn@2.0.0/dist/webauthn.min.js"
</script>

Lastly, a CommonJS variant is also available for old Node stacks, to be imported using require('@passwordless-id/webauthn'). It's usage is discouraged though, in favor of the default ES modules.

Note that at least NodeJS 19+ is necessary. (The reason is that previous Node versions had no WebCrypto being globally available, making it impossible to have a "universal build")

🚀 Getting started

There are multiple ways to use and invoke the WebAuthn protocol. What follows is just an example of the most straightforward use case.

Registration

import {client} from '@passwordless-id/webauthn'
await client.register({
  challenge: 'a random string generated by the server',
  user: 'John Doe'
})

By default, this registers a passkey on any authenticator (local or roaming) with preferred user verification. For further options, see → Registration docs

Authentication

import {client} from '@passwordless-id/webauthn'
await client.authenticate({
  challenge: 'a random string generated by the server'
})

By default, this triggers the native passkey selection dialog, for any authenticator (local or roaming) and with preferred user verification. For further options, see → Authentication docs

Verification

import {server} from '@passwordless-id/webauthn'
await server.verifyRegistration(registration, expected)
await server.verifyAuthentication(registration, expected)

→ Verification docs

📃 Changelog

The "Version 2" is a complete overhaul of the first version. While it still strives for simplicity and ease of use, it also differs from the previous mainly regarding its default behavior.

Previously, this lib defaulted to using the platform as authenticator if possible. The user experience was improved that way, going straight to user verification instead of intermediate popup(s) to select the authenticator.

Now, letting the user select the authenticator is the default. Why this change of mind? Because many platform authenticators now sync credentials in the cloud, with the built-in password manager. While this is certainly convenient, the security and privacy guarantees using synced credentials are not as strong as when using security keys with hardware-bound credentials. That is why security keys now deserve some love.

Same goes for user verification, it is now preferred, like the native WebAuthn protocol. While this reduces security, it supports a wider range of security keys.

Lastly, the response format has been changed completely to be compatible with the output as the PublicKeyCredential.toJson() method. An official part of the spec that only FireFox implements. Using the same intermediate format increases compatibility cross-libraries in the long term.

• Use platform authenticator by default => authenticator selection pops up by default
• authenticatorType was removed => use hints instead
• User verification default: required => preferred
• Timeout: 1 minute => no timeout
• Response format changed
• Transports as part of allowCredentials

The docs for the legacy version 1.x are found here