Announcing Stacks.js v7

Read about what's new in the latest version of Stacks.js. This version comes with a lot of improvements and new features, but it also adds some breaking changes.

Want to use these latest features? Install packages using the latest tag:

$ 
npm install @stacks/{common,network,transactions}@latestCopy

Strings

aka, reducing wrapper types and magic numbers

Problem

Many Stacks.js representations we're not debuggable for developers. Logging Clarity values resulted in unintelligible type and value numbers, confusing even experienced Stacks developers. Private keys were also included unnecessary type properties with raw byte arrays. "Magic" numbers are all accross the codebase (as they are needed for serialization), but these shouldn't be part of the "public" interfaces.

Solution

We switched to a system where most values will be represented as strings. This makes them easier to inspect and diff.

Clarity example, Read more

-
{ type: 1, value: 12n }
+
{ type: "uint", value: "12" }

Private key example, Read more

signMessageHashRsv({
-
  privateKey: createStacksPrivateKey("f5a3...2801"), // { compressed: true, data: [245,163,...] }
+
  privateKey: "f5a3...2801"
})

This breaks the signatures of many functions:

• signMessageHashRsv, signWithKey now return the message signature as a string directly.
• nextSignature, nextVerification, publicKeyFromSignatureVrs, publicKeyFromSignatureRsv now take in the message signature as a string.

Stacks Network

For a long time, Stacks.js "network" instances were used for "networking" and "network" definitions. This caused confusion, as most users use mainnet or testnet for most of their interactions. The "networking" (aka fetching) logic is now more clearly customizable.

From now on "network" objects are static (aka constants) and don't require instantiation.

These changes should make it more obvious when functions are using network object properties vs when they are doing actual networking.

In most cases, developers shouldn't need the @stacks/network package anymore. The network parameter can be used with string literals: 'mainnet', 'testnet', 'devnet', 'mocknet'.

import { StacksTestnet } from '@stacks/network';

makeSTXTokenTransfer({
-
  network: new StacksTestnet(),
+
  network: 'testnet'
  // ...
});

Stacks Network client

In case a function also takes a client parameter, it will be doing actual networking. This way you can use string literal networks with a custom node. You can also still use network objects with the client parameter as part of the network object. The client parameter can be any object-like structure containing a baseUrl and fetch property.

• The baseUrl property should be a string containing the base URL of the Stacks node you want to use.
• The fetch property can be any (fetch)[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Fetch_API] compatible function.

The following diffs show examples of how to migrate to the new pattern.

const transaction = await makeSTXTokenTransfer({
-
network: new StacksTestnet({ url: "mynode-optional.com", fetchFn: myFetch }),
+
network: 'testnet', // optional, defaults to 'mainnet'
+
client: { baseUrl: "mynode-optional.com", fetch: myFetchOptional } // optional, defaults inferred from network
});

The client property is also part of the network object. You can still keep ONE single network object for your whole application.

-
import { StacksTestnet } from '@stacks/network';
+
import { STACKS_TESTNET } from '@stacks/network';

-
const network = new StacksTestnet({ url: "https://mynode.com", fetchFn: myFetch });
+
const network = {
+
  ...STACKS_TESTNET, // extending a static object
+
  client: { baseUrl: "https://mynode.com", fetch: myFetch }
+
};

A To B Helpers

Where possible, Stacks.js now offers function to translate between different representations and concepts. The naming is consistent across the board and uses A To B naming. For example, if we have a private key and want to get the address, we can use the privateKeyToAddress function.

import { privateKeyToAddress } from "@stacks/transactions";

const privateKey = "f5a3...2801";
const address = privateKeyToAddress(privateKey); // SP1MXSZF4NFC8JQ1TTYGEC2WADMC7Y3GHVZYRX6RF

Fetch Methods

To make it easier to discover all fetching functions, they now all start with fetch.

The following methods were renamed:

• estimateFee → fetchFeeEstimate
• estimateTransfer → fetchFeeEstimateTransfer
• estimateTransaction → fetchFeeEstimateTransaction
• getAbi → fetchAbi
• getNonce → fetchNonce
• getContractMapEntry → fetchContractMapEntry
• callReadOnlyFunction → fetchCallReadOnlyFunction

broadcastTransaction wasn't renamed to highlight the uniqueness of the method. Namely, the node/API it is sent to will "broadcast" the transaction to the mempool and is more of an irreversible action.

Clarity Representation

The ClarityType enum was replaced by a more readable version. The previous (wire format compatible) enum is still available as ClarityWireType. These types are considered somewhat internal and shouldn't cause breaking changes for most use-cases.

The property holding the value of the data type is now called value in all cases. Previously, there was a mix of value, list, buffer etc. For bigint values, the type of the value property is a now string, for better serialization compatibility.

{
-
  type: 1,
+
  type: "uint",
-
  value: 12n,
+
  value: "12",
}

{
-
  type: 11,
+
  type: "list",
-
  list: [ ... ],
+
  value: [ ... ],
}

Post-conditions

The old PostCondition type was renamed to PostConditionWire. A new human-readable PostCondition type was introduced in its place.

Below is an example of the new PostCondition types.

// STX post-condition
const stxPostCondition: StxPostCondition = {
  type: 'stx-postcondition',
  address: 'SP2JXKMSH007NPYAQHKJPQMAQYAD90NQGTVJVQ02B',
  condition: 'gte',
  amount: '100',
};

// Fungible token post-condition
const ftPostCondition: FungiblePostCondition = {
  type: 'ft-postcondition',
  address: 'SP2JXKMSH007NPYAQHKJPQMAQYAD90NQGTVJVQ02B',
  condition: 'eq',
  amount: '100',
  asset: 'SP3D6PV2ACBPEKYJTCMH7HEN02KP87QSP8KTEH335.my-ft-token::my-token',
};

// Non-fungible token post-condition
const nftPostCondition: NonFungiblePostCondition = {
  type: 'nft-postcondition',
  address: 'SP2JXKMSH007NPYAQHKJPQMAQYAD90NQGTVJVQ02B',
  condition: 'sent',
  asset: 'SP3D6PV2ACBPEKYJTCMH7HEN02KP87QSP8KTEH335.my-nft::my-asset',
  assetId: Cl.uint(602),
};

Advanced

serialize methods

Existing methods now take or return hex-encoded strings instead of Uint8Arrays.

For easier migrating, renaming the following methods is possible to keep the previous behavior:

• StacksTransaction.serialize → StacksTransaction.serializeBytes
• serializeCV → serializeCVBytes
• serializeAddress → serializeAddressBytes
• deserializeAddress → deserializeAddressBytes
• serializeLPList → serializeLPListBytes
• deserializeLPList → deserializeLPListBytes
• serializeLPString → serializeLPStringBytes
• deserializeLPString → deserializeLPStringBytes
• serializePayload → serializePayloadBytes
• deserializePayload → deserializePayloadBytes
• serializePublicKey → serializePublicKeyBytes
• deserializePublicKey → deserializePublicKeyBytes
• serializeStacksMessage → serializeStacksMessageBytes
• deserializeStacksMessage → deserializeStacksMessageBytes
• serializeMemoString → serializeMemoStringBytes
• deserializeMemoString → deserializeMemoStringBytes
• serializeTransactionAuthField → serializeTransactionAuthFieldBytes
• deserializeTransactionAuthField → deserializeTransactionAuthFieldBytes
• serializeMessageSignature → serializeMessageSignatureBytes
• deserializeMessageSignature → deserializeMessageSignatureBytes
• serializePostCondition → serializePostConditionBytes
• deserializePostCondition → deserializePostConditionBytes
• serializeStacksMessage → serializeStacksWireBytes
• deserializeStacksMessage → deserializeStacksWireBytes

Asset Helper Methods

The following interfaces and methods were renamed:

• AssetInfo → Asset
• StacksWireType.AssetInfo → StacksWireType.Asset
• createAssetInfo → createAsset
• parseAssetInfoString → parseAssetString

CLI

• Removed the authenticator method for legacy Blockstack authentication.

Triplesec

Support for encrypting/decrypting mnemonics with triplesec was removed. This impacts the methods: decrypt, decryptMnemonic, and decryptLegacy. Make sure to update your code to if mnemonics are stored somewhere encrypted using the legacy method.

WireType

Renamed internals to avoid confusion between "message" and wire-format for serialization. This is only used for advanced serialization use-cases internally and should not be needed for most users.

• StacksMessage → StacksWire
• StacksMessageType → StacksWireType
• serializeStacksMessage → serializeStacksWireBytes
• deserializeStacksMessage → deserializeStacksWireBytes

More types were renamed to indicate use for serialization to wire-format:

• MessageSignature → MessageSignatureWire
• StacksPublicKey → PublicKeyWire
• TransactionAuthField → TransactionAuthFieldWire
• Asset → AssetWire
• Address → AddressWire
• PostCondition → PostConditionWire
• PostConditionPrincipal → PostConditionPrincipalWire
• STXPostCondition → STXPostConditionWire
• FungiblePostCondition → FungiblePostConditionWire
• NonFungiblePostCondition → NonFungiblePostConditionWire
• LengthPrefixedString → LengthPrefixedStringWire
• CoinbasePayload → CoinbasePayloadWire
• PoisonPayload → PoisonPayloadWire
• SmartContractPayload → SmartContractPayloadWire
• TokenTransferPayload → TokenTransferPayloadWire
• VersionedSmartContractPayload → VersionedSmartContractPayloadWire
• NakamotoCoinbasePayload → NakamotoCoinbasePayloadWire
• TenureChangePayload → TenureChangePayloadWire
• StandardPrincipal → StandardPrincipalWire
• ContractPrincipal → ContractPrincipalWire

Signed BigInt

The intToBigInt method no longer supports two's complement signed integers and removed the signed boolean parameter. This likely was a misunderstood and unused feature.

Refactorings

• AddressHashMode: The Serialize prefixes were removed for brevity.
• makeRandomPrivKey was renamed to randomPrivateKey and now returns a compressed private key.
• generateSecretKey was renamed to randomSeedPhrase.