JavaScript implementation of libp2p, a modular peer to peer network stack

This project has been used in production for years in Ethereum, IPFS, and more. It is actively maintained by multiple organizations and continues to be improved! The API might change, but we strictly follow semver.

The documentation in the main branch may contain changes from a pre-release.

If you are looking for the documentation of the latest release, you can view the latest release on npm, or select the tag in github that matches the version you are looking for.

Want to get started? Check our GETTING_STARTED.md guide and examples.

Want to update libp2p in your project? Check our migrations folder.

• Background
• Roadmap
• Install
• Usage
  • Configuration
  • Limits
  • Getting started
  • Tutorials and Examples
• Structure
• Development
  • Tests
    • Run unit tests
  • Packages
• Used by
• Contribute
• API Docs
• License

libp2p is the product of a long and arduous quest to understand the evolution of the Internet networking stack. In order to build P2P applications, devs have long had to make custom ad-hoc solutions to fit their needs, sometimes making some hard assumptions about their runtimes and the state of the network at the time of their development. Today, looking back more than 20 years, we see a clear pattern in the types of mechanisms built around the Internet Protocol, IP, which can be found throughout many layers of the OSI layer system, libp2p distils these mechanisms into flat categories and defines clear interfaces that once exposed, enable other protocols and applications to use and swap them, enabling upgradability and adaptability for the runtime, without breaking the API.

We are in the process of writing better documentation, blog posts, tutorials and a formal specification. Today you can find:

• libp2p.io
• docs.libp2p.io
• Specification (WIP)
• Discussion Forums
• Talks
  • libp2p <3 ethereum at DEVCON2
• Articles
  • The overview of libp2p

To sum up, libp2p is a "network stack" -- a protocol suite -- that cleanly separates concerns, and enables sophisticated applications to only use the protocols they absolutely need, without giving up interoperability and upgradeability. libp2p grew out of IPFS, but it is built so that lots of people can use it, for lots of different projects.

The js-libp2p roadmap can be found here: https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p/blob/main/ROADMAP.md

It represents current projects the js-libp2p maintainers are focused on and provides an estimation of completion targets.

It is complementary to the overarching libp2p project roadmap: https://github.com/libp2p/specs/blob/master/ROADMAP.md

npm install libp2p

For all the information on how you can configure libp2p see CONFIGURATION.md.

For help configuring your node to resist malicious network peers, see LIMITS.md

If you are starting your journey with js-libp2p, read the GETTING_STARTED.md guide.

You can find multiple examples on the examples repo that will guide you through using libp2p for several scenarios.

• /doc Docs for libp2p
• /interop Multidimension Interop Test
• /packages/crypto Crypto primitives for libp2p
• /packages/interface The interface implemented by a libp2p node
• /packages/interface-compliance-tests Compliance tests for JS libp2p interfaces
• /packages/interface-internal Interfaces implemented by internal libp2p components
• /packages/kad-dht JavaScript implementation of the Kad-DHT for libp2p
• /packages/keychain Key management and cryptographically protected messages
• /packages/libp2p JavaScript implementation of libp2p, a modular peer to peer network stack
• /packages/logger A logging component for use in js-libp2p modules
• /packages/metrics-prometheus Collect libp2p metrics for scraping by Prometheus or Graphana
• /packages/multistream-select JavaScript implementation of multistream-select
• /packages/peer-collections Stores values against a peer id
• /packages/peer-discovery-bootstrap Peer discovery via a list of bootstrap peers
• /packages/peer-discovery-mdns Node.js libp2p mDNS discovery implementation for peer discovery
• /packages/peer-id Implementation of @libp2p/interface-peer-id
• /packages/peer-id-factory Create PeerId instances
• /packages/peer-record Used to transfer signed peer data across the network
• /packages/peer-store Stores information about peers libp2p knows on the network
• /packages/protocol-echo Implementation of an Echo protocol
• /packages/protocol-perf Implementation of the Perf protocol
• /packages/pubsub libp2p pubsub base class
• /packages/pubsub-floodsub libp2p-floodsub, also known as pubsub-flood or just dumbsub, this implementation of pubsub focused on delivering an API for Publish/Subscribe, but with no CastTree Forming (it just floods the network).
• /packages/record libp2p record implementation
• /packages/stream-multiplexer-mplex JavaScript implementation of https://github.com/libp2p/mplex
• /packages/transport-tcp A TCP transport for libp2p
• /packages/transport-webrtc A libp2p transport using WebRTC connections
• /packages/transport-websockets JavaScript implementation of the WebSockets module that libp2p uses and that implements the interface-transport spec
• /packages/transport-webtransport JavaScript implementation of the WebTransport module that libp2p uses and that implements the interface-transport spec
• /packages/utils Package to aggregate shared logic and dependencies for the libp2p ecosystem

Clone and install dependencies:

> git clone https://github.com/libp2p/js-libp2p.git
> cd js-libp2p
> npm install
> npm run build

# run all the unit tsts
> npm test

# run just Node.js tests
> npm run test:node

# run just Browser tests (Chrome)
> npm run test:chrome

List of packages currently in existence for libp2p

This table is generated using the module package-table with package-table --data=package-list.json.

Package	Version	Deps	CI	Coverage
libp2p
libp2p
@libp2p/interface
transports
@libp2p/tcp
@libp2p/webrtc
@libp2p/websockets
@libp2p/webtransport
secure channels
@chainsafe/libp2p-noise
@libp2p/plaintext
stream multiplexers
@libp2p/mplex
@chainsafe/libp2p-yamux
peer discovery
@libp2p/bootstrap
@libp2p/kad-dht
@libp2p/mdns
@chainsafe/discv5
content routing
@libp2p/http-v1-content-routing
@libp2p/delegated-content-routing
@libp2p/kad-dht
peer routing
@libp2p/delegated-peer-routing
@libp2p/kad-dht
utilities
@libp2p/crypto
data types
@libp2p/peer-id
@libp2p/peer-record
pubsub
@ChainSafe/libp2p-gossipsub
@libp2p/floodsub

And many others...

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

• https://libp2p.github.io/js-libp2p

Licensed under either of

• Apache 2.0, (LICENSE-APACHE / http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT (LICENSE-MIT / http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)