npm package: @stellar/stellar-sdk
Description: A library for working with the Stellar network, including communication with the Horizon and Soroban RPC servers.
Author: Stellar Development Foundation
Latest version: 15.0.1

# Stellar JS SDK (js-stellar-sdk)


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`js-stellar-sdk` is a JavaScript library for communicating with a
[Stellar Horizon server](https://developers.stellar.org/docs/data/apis/horizon) and [Stellar RPC](https://developers.stellar.org/docs/data/apis/rpc).
While primarily intended for applications built on Node.js or in the browser, it can be adapted for use in other environments with some tinkering.

The library provides:

- a networking layer API for Horizon endpoints (REST-based),
- a networking layer for Soroban RPC (JSONRPC-based).
- facilities for building and signing transactions, for communicating with a
  Stellar Horizon instance, and for submitting transactions or querying network
  history.

**Jump to:**

 * [Installation](#installation): details on hitting the ground running
 * [Usage](#usage): links to documentation and a variety of workarounds for non-traditional JavaScript environments
   - [...with React Native](#usage-with-react-native)
   - [...with Expo](#usage-with-expo-managed-workflows)
   - [...with CloudFlare Workers](#usage-with-cloudflare-workers)
 * [CLI](#cli): generate TypeScript bindings for Stellar smart contracts
 * [Developing](#developing): contribute to the project!
 * [Understanding `stellar-sdk` vs. `stellar-base`](#stellar-sdk-vs-stellar-base)
 * [License](#license)

## Installation

Using npm or yarn to include `stellar-sdk` in your own project:

```shell
npm install --save @stellar/stellar-sdk
# or
yarn add @stellar/stellar-sdk
```

Then, require or import it in your JavaScript code:

```js
var StellarSdk = require('@stellar/stellar-sdk');
// or
import * as StellarSdk from '@stellar/stellar-sdk';
```

(Preferably, you would only import the pieces you need to enable tree-shaking and lower your final bundle sizes.)

### Browsers

You can use a CDN:

```html
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/stellar-sdk/{version}/stellar-sdk.js"></script>
```

Note that this method relies on using a third party to host the JS library. This may not be entirely secure. You can self-host it via [Bower](http://bower.io):

```shell
bower install @stellar/stellar-sdk
```

and include it in the browser:

```html
<script src="./bower_components/stellar-sdk/stellar-sdk.js"></script>
<script>
  console.log(StellarSdk);
</script>
```

If you don't want to use or install Bower, you can copy the packaged JS files from the [Bower repo](https://github.com/stellar/bower-js-stellar-sdk), or just build the package yourself locally (see [Developing :arrow_right: Building](#building)) and copy the bundle.

| Always make sure that you are using the latest version number. They can be found on the [releases page](https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-sdk/releases) in GitHub. |
|----|

### Custom Installation

You can configure whether or not to build the browser bundle with the axios dependency. In order to turn off the axios dependency, set the USE_AXIOS environment variable to false. You can also turn off the eventsource dependency by setting USE_EVENTSOURCE to false.

#### Build without Axios
```
npm run build:browser:no-axios
```
This will create `stellar-sdk-no-axios.js` in `dist/`.

#### Build without EventSource
```
npm run build:browser:no-eventsource
```
This will create `stellar-sdk-no-eventsource.js` in `dist/`.

#### Build without Axios and Eventsource
```
npm run build:browser:minimal
```
This will create `stellar-sdk-minimal.js` in `dist/`.

## Usage

The usage documentation for this library lives in a handful of places:

 * across the [Stellar Developer Docs](https://developers.stellar.org), which includes tutorials and examples,
 * within [this repository itself](https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-sdk/blob/master/docs/reference/readme.md), and
 * on the generated [API doc site](https://stellar.github.io/js-stellar-sdk/).

You can also refer to:

 * the [documentation](https://developers.stellar.org/docs/data/horizon) for the Horizon REST API (if using the `Horizon` module) and
 * the [documentation](https://developers.stellar.org/docs/data/rpc) for Soroban RPC's API (if using the `rpc` module)

### Usage with React-Native

1. Install `yarn add --dev rn-nodeify`
2. Add the following postinstall script:
```
yarn rn-nodeify --install url,events,https,http,util,stream,crypto,vm,buffer --hack --yarn
```
3. Uncomment `require('crypto')` on shim.js
4. `react-native link react-native-randombytes`
5. Create file `rn-cli.config.js`
```
module.exports = {
  resolver: {
    extraNodeModules: require("node-libs-react-native"),
  },
};
```
6. Add `import "./shim";` to the top of `index.js`
7. `yarn add @stellar/stellar-sdk`

There is also a [sample](https://github.com/fnando/rn-stellar-sdk-sample) that you can follow.

**Note**: Only the V8 compiler (on Android) and JSC (on iOS) have proper support for `Buffer` and `Uint8Array` as is needed by this library. Otherwise, you may see bizarre errors when doing XDR encoding/decoding such as `source not specified`.

#### Usage with Expo managed workflows

1. Install `yarn add --dev rn-nodeify`
2. Add the following postinstall script:
```
yarn rn-nodeify --install process,url,events,https,http,util,stream,crypto,vm,buffer --hack --yarn
```
3. Add `import "./shim";` to your app's entry point (by default `./App.js`)
4. `yarn add @stellar/stellar-sdk`
5. `expo install expo-random`

At this point, the Stellar SDK will work, except that `StellarSdk.Keypair.random()` will throw an error. To work around this, you can create your own method to generate a random keypair like this:

```javascript
import * as Random from 'expo-random';
import { Keypair } from '@stellar/stellar-sdk';

const generateRandomKeypair = () => {
  const randomBytes = Random.getRandomBytes(32);
  return Keypair.fromRawEd25519Seed(Buffer.from(randomBytes));
};
```

#### Usage with CloudFlare Workers

Both `eventsource` (needed for streaming) and `axios` (needed for making HTTP requests) are problematic dependencies in the CFW environment. The experimental branch [`make-eventsource-optional`](https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-sdk/pull/901) is an attempt to resolve these issues.

It requires the following additional tweaks to your project:
 * the `axios-fetch-adapter` lets you use `axios` with `fetch` as a backend, which is available to CF workers
 * it only works with `axios@"<= 1.0.0"` versions, so we need to force an override into the underlying dependency
 * and this can be problematic with newer `yarn` versions, so we need to force the environment to use Yarn 1

In summary, the `package.json` tweaks look something like this:

```jsonc
"dependencies": {
  // ...
  "@stellar/stellar-sdk": "git+https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-sdk#make-eventsource-optional",
  "@vespaiach/axios-fetch-adapter": "^0.3.1",
  "axios": "^0.26.1"
},
"overrides": {
  "@stellar/stellar-sdk": {
    "axios": "$axios"
  }
},
"packageManager": "yarn@1.22.19"
```

Then, you need to override the adapter in your codebase:

```typescript
import { Horizon } from '@stellar/stellar-sdk';
import fetchAdapter from '@vespaiach/axios-fetch-adapter';

Horizon.AxiosClient.defaults.adapter = fetchAdapter as any;

// then, the rest of your code...
```

All HTTP calls will use `fetch`, now, meaning it should work in the CloudFlare Worker environment.

## CLI

The SDK includes a command-line tool for generating TypeScript bindings from Stellar smart contracts. These bindings provide fully-typed client code with IDE autocompletion and compile-time type checking.

### Running the CLI

```shell
# Using npx (no installation required)
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate [options]

# Or if installed globally
stellar-js generate [options]
```

### Generating Bindings

You can generate bindings from three different sources:

#### From a local WASM file

```shell
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate \
  --wasm ./path/to/wasm_file/my_contract.wasm \
  --output-dir ./my-contract-client \
  --contract-name my-contract
```

#### From a WASM hash on the network

```shell
# testnet, futurenet, and localnet have default RPC URLs
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate \
  --wasm-hash <hex-encoded-hash> \
  --network testnet \
  --output-dir ./my-contract-client \
  --contract-name my-contract
```

#### From a deployed contract ID

```shell
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate \
  --contract-id CABC...XYZ \
  --network testnet \
  --output-dir ./my-contract-client
```

#### With custom RPC server options

For mainnet or when connecting to RPC servers that require authentication:

```shell
# Mainnet requires --rpc-url (no default)
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate \
  --contract-id CABC...XYZ \
  --rpc-url https://my-rpc-provider.com \
  --network mainnet \
  --output-dir ./my-contract-client

# With custom timeout and headers for authenticated RPC servers
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate \
  --contract-id CABC...XYZ \
  --rpc-url https://my-rpc-server.com \
  --network mainnet \
  --output-dir ./my-contract-client \
  --timeout 30000 \
  --headers '{"Authorization": "Bearer my-token"}'

# localnet with default RPC URL auto-enables --allow-http
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate \
  --contract-id CABC...XYZ \
  --network localnet \
  --output-dir ./my-contract-client

# When overriding the default URL, you must specify --allow-http if using HTTP
npx @stellar/stellar-sdk generate \
  --contract-id CABC...XYZ \
  --rpc-url http://my-local-server:8000/rpc \
  --network localnet \
  --output-dir ./my-contract-client \
  --allow-http
```

### CLI Options

| Option | Description |
|--------|-------------|
| `--wasm <path>` | Path to a local WASM file |
| `--wasm-hash <hash>` | Hex-encoded hash of WASM blob on the network |
| `--contract-id <id>` | Contract ID of a deployed contract |
| `--rpc-url <url>` | Stellar RPC server URL (has defaults for testnet/futurenet/localnet, required for mainnet) |
| `--network <network>` | Network to use: `testnet`, `mainnet`, `futurenet`, or `localnet` (required for network sources) |
| `--output-dir <dir>` | Output directory for generated bindings (required) |
| `--contract-name <name>` | Name for the generated package (derived from filename if not provided) |
| `--overwrite` | Overwrite existing files in the output directory |
| `--allow-http` | Allow insecure HTTP connections to RPC server (default: false) |
| `--timeout <ms>` | RPC request timeout in milliseconds |
| `--headers <json>` | Custom headers as JSON object (e.g., `'{"Authorization": "Bearer token"}'`) |

#### Default RPC URLs

When using `--network`, the CLI provides default RPC URLs for most networks:

| Network | Default RPC URL |
|---------|-----------------|
| `testnet` | `https://soroban-testnet.stellar.org` |
| `futurenet` | `https://rpc-futurenet.stellar.org` |
| `localnet` | `http://localhost:8000/rpc` (auto-enables `--allow-http` only when using default URL) |
| `mainnet` | None - you must provide `--rpc-url` ([find providers](https://developers.stellar.org/docs/data/rpc/rpc-providers)) |

### Generated Output

The CLI generates a complete npm package structure:

```
my-contract-client/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts      # Barrel exports
│   ├── client.ts     # Typed Client class with contract methods
│   └── types.ts      # TypeScript interfaces for contract types
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── README.md
└── .gitignore
```

### Using Generated Bindings

After generating, you can use the bindings in your project:

```typescript
import { Client } from './my-contract-client';

const client = new Client({
  contractId: 'CABC...XYZ',
  networkPassphrase: Networks.TESTNET,
  rpcUrl: 'https://soroban-testnet.stellar.org',
  publicKey: keypair.publicKey(),
  ...basicNodeSigner(keypair, Networks.TESTNET),
});

// Fully typed method calls with IDE autocompletion
const result = await client.transfer({
  from: 'GABC...',
  to: 'GDEF...',
  amount: 1000n,
});
```

## Developing

So you want to contribute to the library: welcome! Whether you're working on a fork or want to make an upstream request, the dev-test loop is pretty straightforward.

1. Clone the repo:

```shell
git clone https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-sdk.git
```

2. Install dependencies inside js-stellar-sdk folder:

```shell
cd js-stellar-sdk
yarn
```

3. Install Node 20

Because we support the oldest maintenance version of Node, please install and develop on Node 20 so you don't get surprised when your code works locally but breaks in CI.

Here's how to install `nvm` if you haven't: https://github.com/creationix/nvm

```shell
nvm install 20

# if you've never installed 18 before you'll want to re-install yarn
npm install -g yarn
```

If you work on several projects that use different Node versions, you might it helpful to install this automatic version manager: https://github.com/wbyoung/avn

4. Observe the project's code style

While you're making changes, make sure to run the linter to catch any linting
errors (in addition to making sure your text editor supports ESLint) and conform to the project's code style.

```shell
yarn fmt
```

### Building
You can build the developer version (unoptimized, commented, with source maps, etc.) or the production bundles:

```shell
yarn build
# or
yarn build:prod
```

### Testing

To run all tests:

```shell
yarn test
```

To run a specific set of tests:

```shell
yarn test:node
yarn test:browser
yarn test:integration
```

In order to have a faster test loop, these suite-specific commands **do not** build the bundles first (unlike `yarn test`). If you make code changes, you will need to run `yarn build` (or a subset like `yarn build:node` corresponding to the test suite) before running the tests again to see your changes.

To generate and check the documentation site:

```shell
# install the `serve` command if you don't have it already
npm i -g serve

# clone the base library for complete docs
git clone https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-base

# generate the docs files
yarn docs

# get these files working in a browser
cd jsdoc && serve .

# you'll be able to browse the docs at http://localhost:5000
```

### Publishing

For information on how to contribute or publish new versions of this software to `npm`, please refer to our [contribution guide](https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-sdk/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md).

## Miscellaneous

### `stellar-sdk` vs `stellar-base`

`stellar-sdk` is a high-level library that serves as client-side API for Horizon and Soroban RPC, while [`stellar-base](https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-base) is lower-level library for creating Stellar primitive constructs via XDR helpers and wrappers.

**Most people will want stellar-sdk instead of stellar-base.** You should only use stellar-base if you know what you're doing!

If you add `stellar-sdk` to a project, **do not add `stellar-base`!** Mismatching versions could cause weird, hard-to-find bugs. `stellar-sdk` automatically installs `stellar-base` and exposes all of its exports in case you need them.

> **Important!** The Node.js version of the `stellar-base` (`stellar-sdk` dependency) package uses the [`sodium-native`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/sodium-native) package as an [optional dependency](https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#optionaldependencies). `sodium-native` is a low level binding to [libsodium](https://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium), (an implementation of [Ed25519](https://ed25519.cr.yp.to/) signatures).
> If installation of `sodium-native` fails, or it is unavailable, `stellar-base` (and `stellar-sdk`) will fallback to using the [`tweetnacl`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/tweetnacl) package implementation. If you are using them in a browser, you can ignore this. However, for production backend deployments, you should be using `sodium-native`.
> If `sodium-native` is successfully installed and working the `StellarSdk.FastSigning` variable will return `true`.

### License

js-stellar-sdk is licensed under an Apache-2.0 license. See the
[LICENSE](https://github.com/stellar/js-stellar-sdk/blob/master/LICENSE) file
for details.