Universal 'JSON Web Almost Everything' - JWA, JWS, JWE, JWT, JWK with no dependencies
The 'jose' npm package is a JavaScript library that provides a variety of cryptographic operations based on JSON Web Tokens (JWT), JSON Web Encryption (JWE), JSON Web Signature (JWS), and JSON Web Key (JWK). It is designed to be compliant with the JOSE (JSON Object Signing and Encryption) suite of standards, and it supports various algorithms for encryption, decryption, signing, and verification of tokens.
JWT Signing
This code sample demonstrates how to create and sign a JWT with a specified algorithm and secret.
const { SignJWT } = require('jose');
const jwt = await new SignJWT({ 'urn:example:claim': true })
.setProtectedHeader({ alg: 'HS256' })
.setIssuedAt()
.setIssuer('urn:example:issuer')
.setAudience('urn:example:audience')
.setExpirationTime('2h')
.sign(new TextEncoder().encode('your-256-bit-secret'));
console.log(jwt);JWT Verification
This code sample shows how to verify a JWT using a secret key and retrieve the payload and protected header.
const { jwtVerify } = require('jose');
const { payload, protectedHeader } = await jwtVerify(jwt, new TextEncoder().encode('your-256-bit-secret'));
console.log(payload);
console.log(protectedHeader);JWE Encryption
This code sample illustrates how to encrypt a JWT using RSA-OAEP-256 for key management and A256GCM for content encryption.
const { EncryptJWT } = require('jose');
const jwe = await new EncryptJWT({ 'urn:example:claim': true })
.setProtectedHeader({ alg: 'RSA-OAEP-256', enc: 'A256GCM' })
.setIssuedAt()
.setIssuer('urn:example:issuer')
.setAudience('urn:example:audience')
.setExpirationTime('2h')
.encrypt(publicKey);
console.log(jwe);JWE Decryption
This code sample demonstrates how to decrypt a JWE and obtain the payload and protected header using a private key.
const { jwtDecrypt } = require('jose');
const { payload, protectedHeader } = await jwtDecrypt(jwe, privateKey);
console.log(payload);
console.log(protectedHeader);JWK Key Generation
This code sample shows how to generate a public and private key pair for the RS256 algorithm.
const { generateKeyPair } = require('jose');
const { publicKey, privateKey } = await generateKeyPair('RS256');
console.log(publicKey);
console.log(privateKey);The 'jsonwebtoken' package is similar to 'jose' in that it provides functionality for creating and verifying JWTs. It is widely used and has a simpler API for basic JWT operations, but it does not support JWE or more advanced JOSE features.
The 'node-jose' package is another alternative that implements the JOSE suite of standards. It offers similar functionalities to 'jose' but has a different API design and may have different performance characteristics.
The 'jws' package is focused on JSON Web Signatures (JWS). It is a simpler library that allows signing and verifying messages but does not handle JWTs, JWEs, or JWKs directly.
Universal "JSON Web Almost Everything" - JWA, JWS, JWE, JWT, JWK with no dependencies using native crypto runtimes
The following specifications are implemented by jose
The test suite utilizes examples defined in RFC7520 to confirm its JOSE implementation is correct.
If you or your business use jose, please consider becoming a sponsor so I can continue maintaining it and adding new features carefree.
npm install jose
ESM module (import):
npm install jose-node-esm-runtime
CJS module (require):
npm install jose-node-cjs-runtime
npm install jose-browser-runtime
A continuously growing list of examples is available in the tracker.
| JWK Key Types | Supported | kty value | |
|---|---|---|---|
| RSA | ✓ | RSA | |
| Elliptic Curve | ✓ | EC | supported curves: P-256, secp256k1, P-384, P-521 |
| Octet Key Pair | ✓ | OKP | supported subtypes: Ed25519, Ed448, X25519, X448 |
| Octet sequence | ✓ | oct |
| Serialization | JWS Sign | JWS Verify | JWE Encrypt | JWE Decrypt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compact | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| General JSON | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Flattened JSON | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| JWT Sign | JWT Verify | JWT Encrypt | JWT Decrypt |
|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| JWS Algorithms | Supported | |
|---|---|---|
| RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 | ✓ | RS256, RS384, RS512 |
| RSASSA-PSS | ✓ | PS256, PS384, PS512 |
| ECDSA | ✓ | ES256, ES256K, ES384, ES512 |
| Edwards-curve DSA | ✓ | EdDSA |
| HMAC with SHA-2 | ✓ | HS256, HS384, HS512 |
| Unsecured JWS | ✓ | none |
| JWE Key Management Algorithms | Supported | |
|---|---|---|
| AES | ✓ | A128KW, A192KW, A256KW |
| AES GCM | ✓ | A128GCMKW, A192GCMKW, A256GCMKW |
| Direct Key Agreement | ✓ | dir |
| RSAES OAEP | ✓ | RSA-OAEP, RSA-OAEP-256, RSA-OAEP-384, RSA-OAEP-512 |
| RSAES-PKCS1-v1_5 | ✓ | RSA1_5 |
| PBES2 | ✓ | PBES2-HS256+A128KW, PBES2-HS384+A192KW, PBES2-HS512+A256KW |
| ECDH-ES | ✓ | ECDH-ES, ECDH-ES+A128KW, ECDH-ES+A192KW, ECDH-ES+A256KW |
| JWE Content Encryption Algorithms | Supported | |
|---|---|---|
| AES GCM | ✓ | A128GCM, A192GCM, A256GCM |
| AES CBC w/ HMAC | ✓ | A128CBC-HS256, A192CBC-HS384, A256CBC-HS512 |
Legend:
| Platform | supported versions | caveats |
|---|---|---|
| Node.js | LTS ^12.19.0 || ^14.15.0 | |
| Electron | ^12.0.0 | see [1] |
| Deno | ✕ | needs Web Cryptography API integration first |
| React Native | ✕ | has no available and usable crypto runtime |
| IE | ✕ | implements old version of the Web Cryptography API specification |
| Browsers | see caniuse.com | |
| --- | ||
| Edge | 79+ | see [2], [4] |
| Firefox | 57+ | see [2] |
| Chrome | 63+ | see [2], [4] |
| Safari | 11+ | see [2], [3] |
| Opera | 50+ | see [2], [4] |
| iOS Safari | 12+ | see [2], [3] |
1 Due to its use of BoringSSL the following is not supported in Electron
2 RSA1_5, OKP JWK Key Type, and secp256k1 EC curve is not supported in Web Cryptography API.
3 P-521 EC curve is not supported in Safari
4 192 bit AES keys are not supported in Chromium
| Version | Security Fixes 🔑 | Other Bug Fixes 🐞 | New Features ⭐ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.x.x | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| 2.x.x | ✅ | ✅ until 2022-04-30 | ❌ |
| 1.x.x | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Yes. All module's public API is subject to Semantic Versioning 2.0.0.
jws, jwa or jsonwebtoken?node-jose?node-jose is also built to work in any javascript runtime, to be able to do that it packs a lot of
polyfills and javascript implementation code in the form of
node-forge, this significantly increases the footprint
of the modules with dependencies that either aren't ever used or have native implementation available
in the runtime already, those are often times faster and more reliable.
node-forge fallbacks when crypto runtime is unavailableUint8Array is a valid input, so is Buffer since buffers are instances of Uint8Array.Uint8Array is returned and you want a Buffer instead, use Buffer.from(uint8array).Yes the bundle size is on the larger side, that is because each module is actually published multiple times so that it can remain truly without dependencies and be universal / isomorphic.
Nevertheless, since each module can be required independently and is fully tree-shakeable, the install size should not be a cause for concern.
I was using node-jose for
openid-client and
oidc-provider and came to realize its shortcomings
in terms of performance and API (not having well defined errors).
+ this was an amazing opportunity to learn JOSE as a whole
FAQs
JWA, JWS, JWE, JWT, JWK, JWKS for Node.js, Browser, Cloudflare Workers, Deno, Bun, and other Web-interoperable runtimes
The npm package jose receives a total of 11,619,111 weekly downloads. As such, jose popularity was classified as popular.
We found that jose demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 0 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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