Version: v0.26

TypeScript frontend

Ignite offers powerful functionality for generating client-side code for your blockchain. Think of this as a one-click client SDK generation tailored specifically for your blockchain.

See ignite generate ts-client --help learn more on how to use TypeScript code generation.

Starting a node

Create a new blockchain with ignite scaffold chain. You can use an existing blockchain project if you have one, instead.

ignite scaffold chain example

For testing purposes add a new account to config.yml with a mnemonic:

config.yml
accounts:
  - name: frank
    coins: ["1000token", "100000000stake"]
    mnemonic: play butter frown city voyage pupil rabbit wheat thrive mind skate turkey helmet thrive door either differ gate exhibit impose city swallow goat faint

Run a command to generate TypeScript clients for both standard and custom Cosmos SDK modules:

ignite generate ts-client --clear-cache

Run a command to start your blockchain node:

ignite chain serve -r

Setting up a TypeScript frontend client

The best way to get started building with the TypeScript client is by using Vite. Vite provides boilerplate code for vanilla TS projects as well as React, Vue, Lit, Svelte and Preact frameworks. You can find additional information at the Vite Getting Started guide.

You will also need to polyfill the client's dependencies. The following is an example of setting up a vanilla TS project with the necessary polyfills:

npm create vite@latest my-frontend-app -- --template vanilla-ts
cd my-frontend-app
npm install --save-dev @esbuild-plugins/node-globals-polyfill @rollup/plugin-node-resolve

You must then create the necessary vite.config.ts file.

my-frontend-app/vite.config.ts
import { nodeResolve } from "@rollup/plugin-node-resolve";
import { NodeGlobalsPolyfillPlugin } from "@esbuild-plugins/node-globals-polyfill";
import { defineConfig } from "vite";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [nodeResolve()],

  optimizeDeps: {
    esbuildOptions: {
      define: {
        global: "globalThis",
      },
      plugins: [
        NodeGlobalsPolyfillPlugin({
          buffer: true,
        }),
      ],
    },
  },
});

You are then ready to use the generated client code inside this project directly or by publishing the client and installing it like any other npm package.

After the chain starts, you will see Frank's address is cosmos13xkhcx2dquhqdml0k37sr7yndquwteuvt2cml7. We'll be using Frank's account for querying data and broadcasting transactions in the next section.

Querying

The code generated in ts-client comes with a package.json file ready to publish which you can modify to suit your needs. To usets-client install the required dependencies:

cd ts-client
npm install

The client is based on a modular architecture where you can configure a client class to support the modules you need and instantiate it.

By default, the generated client exports a client class that includes all the Cosmos SDK, custom and 3rd party modules in use in your project.

To instantiate the client you need to provide environment information (endpoints and chain prefix). For querying that's all you need:

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
import { Client } from "../../ts-client";

const client = new Client(
  {
    apiURL: "http://localhost:1317",
    rpcURL: "http://localhost:26657",
    prefix: "cosmos",
  }
);

The example above uses ts-client from a local directory. If you have published your ts-client on npm replace ../../ts-client with a package name.

The resulting client instance contains namespaces for each module, each with a query and tx namespace containing the module's relevant querying and transacting methods with full type and auto-completion support.

To query for a balance of an address:

const balances = await client.CosmosBankV1Beta1.query.queryAllBalances(
  'cosmos13xkhcx2dquhqdml0k37sr7yndquwteuvt2cml7'
);

Broadcasting a transaction

Add signing capabilities to the client by creating a wallet from a mnemonic (we're using the Frank's mnemonic added to config.yml earlier) and passing it as an optional argument to Client(). The wallet implements the CosmJS OfflineSigner` interface.

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
import { Client } from "../../ts-client";
import { DirectSecp256k1HdWallet } from "@cosmjs/proto-signing";

const mnemonic =
  "play butter frown city voyage pupil rabbit wheat thrive mind skate turkey helmet thrive door either differ gate exhibit impose city swallow goat faint";
const wallet = await DirectSecp256k1HdWallet.fromMnemonic(mnemonic);

const client = new Client(
  {
    apiURL: "http://localhost:1317",
    rpcURL: "http://localhost:26657",
    prefix: "cosmos",
  },
  wallet
);

Broadcasting a transaction:

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
const tx_result = await client.CosmosBankV1Beta1.tx.sendMsgSend({
  value: {
    amount: [
      {
        amount: '200',
        denom: 'token',
      },
    ],
    fromAddress: 'cosmos13xkhcx2dquhqdml0k37sr7yndquwteuvt2cml7',
    toAddress: 'cosmos15uw6qpxqs6zqh0zp3ty2ac29cvnnzd3qwjntnc',
  },
  fee: {
    amount: [{ amount: '0', denom: 'stake' }],
    gas: '200000',
  },
  memo: '',
})

Broadcasting a transaction with a custom message

If your chain already has custom messages defined, you can use those. If not, we'll be using Ignite's scaffolded code as an example. Create a post with CRUD messages:

ignite scaffold list post title body

After adding messages to your chain you may need to re-generate the TypeScript client:

ignite generate ts-client --clear-cache

Broadcast a transaction containing the custom MsgCreatePost:

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
import { Client } from "../../ts-client";
import { DirectSecp256k1HdWallet } from "@cosmjs/proto-signing";

const mnemonic =
  "play butter frown city voyage pupil rabbit wheat thrive mind skate turkey helmet thrive door either differ gate exhibit impose city swallow goat faint";
const wallet = await DirectSecp256k1HdWallet.fromMnemonic(mnemonic);

const client = new Client(
  {
    apiURL: "http://localhost:1317",
    rpcURL: "http://localhost:26657",
    prefix: "cosmos",
  },
  wallet
);
const tx_result = await client.ExampleExample.tx.sendMsgCreatePost({
  value: {
    title: 'foo',
    body: 'bar',
    creator: 'cosmos13xkhcx2dquhqdml0k37sr7yndquwteuvt2cml7',
  },
  fee: {
    amount: [{ amount: '0', denom: 'stake' }],
    gas: '200000',
  },
  memo: '',
})

Lightweight client

If you prefer, you can construct a lighter client using only the modules you are interested in by importing the generic client class and expanding it with the modules you need:

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
import { IgniteClient } from '../../ts-client/client'
import { Module as CosmosBankV1Beta1 } from '../../ts-client/cosmos.bank.v1beta1'
import { Module as CosmosStakingV1Beta1 } from '../../ts-client/cosmos.staking.v1beta1'
import { DirectSecp256k1HdWallet } from '@cosmjs/proto-signing'

const mnemonic =
  'play butter frown city voyage pupil rabbit wheat thrive mind skate turkey helmet thrive door either differ gate exhibit impose city swallow goat faint'
const wallet = await DirectSecp256k1HdWallet.fromMnemonic(mnemonic)
const Client = IgniteClient.plugin([CosmosBankV1Beta1, CosmosStakingV1Beta1])

const client = new Client(
  {
    apiURL: 'http://localhost:1317',
    rpcURL: 'http://localhost:26657',
    prefix: 'cosmos',
  },
  wallet,
)

Broadcasting a multi-message transaction

You can also construct TX messages separately and send them in a single TX using a global signing client like so:

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
const msg1 = await client.CosmosBankV1Beta1.tx.msgSend({
  value: {
    amount: [
      {
        amount: '200',
        denom: 'token',
      },
    ],
    fromAddress: 'cosmos13xkhcx2dquhqdml0k37sr7yndquwteuvt2cml7',
    toAddress: 'cosmos15uw6qpxqs6zqh0zp3ty2ac29cvnnzd3qwjntnc',
  },
})

const msg2 = await client.CosmosBankV1Beta1.tx.msgSend({
  value: {
    amount: [
      {
        amount: '200',
        denom: 'token',
      },
    ],
    fromAddress: 'cosmos13xkhcx2dquhqdml0k37sr7yndquwteuvt2cml7',
    toAddress: 'cosmos15uw6qpxqs6zqh0zp3ty2ac29cvnnzd3qwjntnc',
  },
})

const tx_result = await client.signAndBroadcast(
  [msg1, msg2],
  {
    amount: [{ amount: '0', denom: 'stake' }],
    gas: '200000',
  },
  '',
)

Finally, for additional ease-of-use, apart from the modular client mentioned above, each generated module is usable on its own in a stripped-down way by exposing a separate txClient and queryClient.

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
import { txClient } from '../../ts-client/cosmos.bank.v1beta1'
import { DirectSecp256k1HdWallet } from '@cosmjs/proto-signing'

const mnemonic =
  'play butter frown city voyage pupil rabbit wheat thrive mind skate turkey helmet thrive door either differ gate exhibit impose city swallow goat faint'
const wallet = await DirectSecp256k1HdWallet.fromMnemonic(mnemonic)

const client = txClient({
  signer: wallet,
  prefix: 'cosmos',
  addr: 'http://localhost:26657',
})

const tx_result = await client.sendMsgSend({
  value: {
    amount: [
      {
        amount: '200',
        denom: 'token',
      },
    ],
    fromAddress: 'cosmos13xkhcx2dquhqdml0k37sr7yndquwteuvt2cml7',
    toAddress: 'cosmos15uw6qpxqs6zqh0zp3ty2ac29cvnnzd3qwjntnc',
  },
  fee: {
    amount: [{ amount: '0', denom: 'stake' }],
    gas: '200000',
  },
  memo: '',
})

Usage with Keplr

Normally, Keplr provides a wallet object implementing the OfflineSigner interface, so you can simply replace the wallet argument in client instantiation with window.keplr.getOfflineSigner(chainId). However, Keplr requires information about your chain, like chain ID, denoms, fees, etc. experimentalSuggestChain() is a method Keplr provides to pass this information to the Keplr extension.

The generated client makes this easier by offering a useKeplr() method that automatically discovers the chain information and sets it up for you. Thus, you can instantiate the client without a wallet and then call useKeplr() to enable transacting via Keplr like so:

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
import { Client } from '../../ts-client';

const client = new Client({ 
        apiURL: "http://localhost:1317",
        rpcURL: "http://localhost:26657",
        prefix: "cosmos"
    }
);
await client.useKeplr();

useKeplr() optionally accepts an object argument that contains one or more of the same keys as the ChainInfo type argument of experimentalSuggestChain() allowing you to override the auto-discovered values.

For example, the default chain name and token precision (which are not recorded on-chain) are set to <chainId> Network and 0 while the ticker for the denom is set to the denom name in uppercase. If you want to override these, you can do something like:

my-frontend-app/src/main.ts
import { Client } from '../../ts-client';

const client = new Client({ 
        apiURL: "http://localhost:1317",
        rpcURL: "http://localhost:26657",
        prefix: "cosmos"
    }
);
await client.useKeplr({
  chainName: 'My Great Chain',
  stakeCurrency: {
    coinDenom: 'TOKEN',
    coinMinimalDenom: 'utoken',
    coinDecimals: '6',
  },
})

Wallet switching

The client also allows you to switch out the wallet for a different one on an already instantiated client like so:

import { Client } from '../../ts-client';
import { DirectSecp256k1HdWallet } from "@cosmjs/proto-signing";

const mnemonic =
  'play butter frown city voyage pupil rabbit wheat thrive mind skate turkey helmet thrive door either differ gate exhibit impose city swallow goat faint'
const wallet = await DirectSecp256k1HdWallet.fromMnemonic(mnemonic);

const client = new Client({ 
        apiURL: "http://localhost:1317",
        rpcURL: "http://localhost:26657",
        prefix: "cosmos"
    }
);
await client.useKeplr();

// broadcast transactions using the Keplr wallet

client.useSigner(wallet);

// broadcast transactions using the CosmJS wallet

TypeScript frontend

Starting a node​

Setting up a TypeScript frontend client​

Querying​

Broadcasting a transaction​

Broadcasting a transaction with a custom message​

Lightweight client​

Broadcasting a multi-message transaction​

Usage with Keplr​

Wallet switching​