urbit

Urbit Connector

This project allows you to connect to an Urbit ship via a JavaScript application.

Example

Start a new project, run npm install urbit and run the below, or run node.js from the root of this project.

const Urbit = require('urbit').default;

// Assuming
// a) you are running a fakezod on port 8080
// b) you have created a chat called 'mc' on that fakezod,
const url = 'localhost';
const port = 8080;
const code = 'lidlut-tabwed-pillex-ridrup';

async function mars() {
    const ship = new Urbit(`http://${url}:${port}`, code);
    await ship.connect();
    await ship.subscribe('zod', 'chat-store', '/mailbox/~/~zod/mc');
    const pipe = ship.eventSource();
    await ship.poke('zod', 'chat-hook', 'json', {message: {path: '/~/~zod/mc', envelope: {
        uid: Urbit.uid(),
        number: 1, // Dummy, gets overwritten immediately
        author: '~zod',
        when: new Date().getTime(),
        letter: { text: 'Hello, Mars!' }
    }}});
}

mars();
console.log('Press ctrl-c to quit');

Design

This library is designed to be useful for node applications that communicate with an urbit running either on the local computer or on a remote one.

The majority of its methods are asynchronous and return Promises. This is due to the non-blocking nature of JavaScript. If used in a React app, response handlers should be bound with this to setState after a message is received.

It uses the Axios library to polyfill the native JavaScript fetch which is only available in the browser context. It uses a similar approach to EventSource.

Future Work

Future features include:

• Reworking the axios calls to use a fetch-compatible syntax
• Adding handlers for sending chat messages with a simpler syntax
• Browser-ready dist file (let me know if you have experience with this)
• Better tracking of current subscriptions and acks