What is jose?
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.
What are jose's main functionalities?
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);
Other packages similar to jose
jsonwebtoken
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.
node-jose
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.
jws
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.
jose
"JSON Web Almost Everything" - JWA, JWS, JWE, JWT, JWK, JWKS with no dependencies using runtime's native crypto in Node.js, Browser, Cloudflare Workers, Electron, and Deno.
Implemented specs & features
The following specifications are implemented by jose
The test suite utilizes examples defined in RFC7520 to confirm its JOSE
implementation is correct.
Support
If you or your business use jose
, please consider becoming a sponsor so I can continue maintaining it and adding new features carefree.
Documentation
example
ESM import
import * as jose from 'jose'
example
CJS require
const jose = require('jose')
example
Deno import
import * as jose from 'https://deno.land/x/jose/index.ts'
- JSON Web Tokens (JWT)
- Key Import
- JSON Web Encryption (JWE)
- JSON Web Signature (JWS)
- JSON Web Key (JWK)
- JSON Web Key Set (JWKS)
- Key Pair or Secret Generation
- Key Export
- Utilities
- Unsecured JWT
- JOSE Errors
Supported Runtimes, Environments, Platforms
FAQ
Supported Versions
Version | Security Fixes 🔑 | Other Bug Fixes 🐞 | New Features ⭐ |
---|
4.x.x | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
3.x.x | ✅ | ✅ until 2022-04-30 | ❌ |
2.x.x | ✅ | ✅ until 2022-04-30 | ❌ |
1.x.x | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Semver?
Yes. All module's public API is subject to Semantic Versioning 2.0.0.
- it supports Browser, Cloudflare Workers, and Deno runtimes
- it supports encrypted JWTs (i.e. in JWE format)
- supports secp256k1, Ed25519, Ed448, X25519, and X448
- it supports JWK Key Format for all four key types (oct, RSA, EC and OKP)
- it is exclusively using native platform Key object representations (CryptoKey and KeyObject)
- there is JSON Web Encryption support
- it supports the flattened JWS / JWE Serialization Syntaxes
- it supports the "crit" member validations to make sure extensions are handled correctly
How is it different from node-jose
?
node-jose
is 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.
- supports secp256k1, Ed25519, Ed448, X25519, and X448
Uint8Array?!
- Whenever
Uint8Array
is a valid input, so is Buffer
since buffers are instances of Uint8Array. - Whenever
Uint8Array
is returned and you want a Buffer
instead, use Buffer.from(uint8array)
.
Bundle Size, Package Size, Tree Shaking
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.