algosdk

What is algosdk?

The algosdk npm package is a JavaScript library for interacting with the Algorand blockchain. It provides tools for building applications on Algorand, including creating and managing accounts, sending transactions, and interacting with smart contracts.

What are algosdk's main functionalities?

Account Management

This feature allows you to create and manage Algorand accounts. The code sample demonstrates how to generate a new account and retrieve its address and mnemonic.

const algosdk = require('algosdk');
const account = algosdk.generateAccount();
console.log('Address:', account.addr);
console.log('Mnemonic:', algosdk.secretKeyToMnemonic(account.sk));

Transaction Handling

This feature enables the creation and submission of transactions on the Algorand blockchain. The code sample shows how to create a payment transaction, sign it, and send it to the network.

const algosdk = require('algosdk');
const algodClient = new algosdk.Algodv2(token, server, port);
const txn = algosdk.makePaymentTxnWithSuggestedParamsFromObject({
  from: senderAddress,
  to: receiverAddress,
  amount: 1000000,
  suggestedParams: await algodClient.getTransactionParams().do()
});
const signedTxn = txn.signTxn(senderPrivateKey);
const sendTx = await algodClient.sendRawTransaction(signedTxn).do();
console.log('Transaction ID:', sendTx.txId);

Smart Contract Interaction

This feature allows interaction with Algorand smart contracts. The code sample demonstrates how to call a smart contract with arguments using a NoOp transaction.

const algosdk = require('algosdk');
const algodClient = new algosdk.Algodv2(token, server, port);
const appArgs = [algosdk.encodeUint64(123)];
const txn = algosdk.makeApplicationNoOpTxn(senderAddress, await algodClient.getTransactionParams().do(), appId, appArgs);
const signedTxn = txn.signTxn(senderPrivateKey);
const sendTx = await algodClient.sendRawTransaction(signedTxn).do();
console.log('Transaction ID:', sendTx.txId);

Other packages similar to algosdk

web3

Web3.js is a JavaScript library for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain. It provides similar functionalities to algosdk, such as account management, transaction handling, and smart contract interaction, but is specific to Ethereum.

ethers

Ethers.js is another JavaScript library for Ethereum, offering a more lightweight and modular approach compared to web3.js. Like algosdk, it provides tools for managing accounts, sending transactions, and interacting with smart contracts, but is focused on the Ethereum ecosystem.

README

js-algorand-sdk

AlgoSDK is the official JavaScript library for communicating with the Algorand network. It's designed for modern browsers and Node.js.

New Major Version 3

Existing codebases using v2 of this library will be incompatible with v3. The v3 release introduces breaking changes to the API, and a migration guide is available here.

Installation

Node.js

$ npm install algosdk

This package provides TypeScript types, but you will need TypeScript version 4.2 or higher to use them properly.

Browser

Include a minified browser bundle directly in your HTML like so:

<script
  src="https://unpkg.com/algosdk@v3.1.0/dist/browser/algosdk.min.js"
  integrity="sha384-xqUrJcyrZRXbDnjLdCC1ZuMEVm2VMF/tHz0PUvm4wN0qXemGRXYIX19U2alJ27hB"
  crossorigin="anonymous"
></script>

or

<script
  src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/algosdk@v3.1.0/dist/browser/algosdk.min.js"
  integrity="sha384-xqUrJcyrZRXbDnjLdCC1ZuMEVm2VMF/tHz0PUvm4wN0qXemGRXYIX19U2alJ27hB"
  crossorigin="anonymous"
></script>

Information about hosting the package for yourself, finding the browser bundles of previous versions, and computing the SRI hash is available here.

Quick Start

const token = 'Your algod API token';
const server = 'http://127.0.0.1';
const port = 8080;
const client = new algosdk.Algodv2(token, server, port);

(async () => {
  console.log(await client.status().do());
})().catch((e) => {
  console.log(e);
});

Documentation

Documentation for this SDK is available here: https://algorand.github.io/js-algorand-sdk/. Additional resources are available on https://developer.algorand.org.

Examples

Running examples requires access to a running node. Follow the instructions in Algorand's developer resources to install a node on your computer.

As portions of the codebase are written in TypeScript, example files cannot be run directly using node. Please refer to the instructions described in the examples/README.md file for more information regarding running the examples.

SDK Development

Building

To build a new version of the library, run:

npm run build

Generating Documentation

To generate the documentation website, run:

npm run docs

The static website will be located in the docs/ directory.

Testing

We have two test suites: mocha tests in this repo, and the Algorand SDK test suite from https://github.com/algorand/algorand-sdk-testing.

Node.js

To run the mocha tests in Node.js, run:

npm test

To run the SDK test suite in Node.js, run:

make docker-test

Browsers

The test suites can also run in browsers. To do so, set the environment variable TEST_BROWSER to one of our supported browsers. Currently we support testing in chrome and firefox. When TEST_BROWSER is set, the mocha and SDK test suites will run in that browser.

For example, to run mocha tests in Chrome:

TEST_BROWSER=chrome npm test

And to run SDK tests in Firefox:

TEST_BROWSER=firefox make docker-test

Code Style

This project enforces a modified version of the Airbnb code style.

We've setup linters and formatters to help catch errors and improve the development experience:

• Prettier – ensures that code is formatted in a readable way.
• ESLint — checks code for antipatterns as well as formatting.

If using the Visual Studio Code editor with the recommended extensions, ESLint errors should be highlighted in red and the Prettier extension should format code on every save.

Precommit Hook

The linters and formatters listed above should run automatically on each commit to catch errors early and save CI running time.

License

js-algorand-sdk is licensed under an MIT license. See the LICENSE file for details.