status-go/cmd/status-backend

Description

Welcome to status-backend. This is a tool for debugging and testing status-go. In contrast to existing statusd and status-cli, the status-backend exposes full status-go API through HTTP.

This allows to communicate with status-go through HTTP the same way as status-desktop and status-mobile do, including:

• create account
• restore account
• login
• logout
• start messenger
• start wallet
• subscribe to status-go signals
• etc.

status-go API

Public methods in ./mobile/status.go

Only specific function signatures are currently supported:

• func(string) string - 1 argument, 1 return
• func() string - 0 argument, 1 return

Unsupported methods

Attempt to call any other functions will return 501: Not Implemented HTTP code.
For example, VerifyAccountPassword has 3 arguments:

func VerifyAccountPassword(keyStoreDir, address, password string) string {
    return logAndCallString(verifyAccountPassword, keyStoreDir, address, password)
}

Later, as needed, a V2 of these functions will be introduced. V2 will have a single JSON argument composing all args in 1.
For example, https://github.com/status-im/status-go/pull/5865 fixes some of these.

Deprecated methods

Deprecated methods will have Deprecation: true HTTP header.

Signals in ./signal

Each signal has this structure:

// Envelope is a general signal sent upward from node to RN app
type Envelope struct {
    Type  string      `json:"type"`
    Event interface{} `json:"event"`
}

List of possible events can be found in ./signal/event_*.go files.

For example, node.login event is defined here:

const (
    // EventLoggedIn is once node was injected with user account and ready to be used.
    EventLoggedIn = "node.login"
)

And the structure of this event is defined in the same file:

// NodeLoginEvent returns the result of the login event
type NodeLoginEvent struct {
	Error        string                 `json:"error,omitempty"`
	Settings     *settings.Settings     `json:"settings,omitempty"`
	Account      *multiaccounts.Account `json:"account,omitempty"`
	EnsUsernames json.RawMessage        `json:"ensUsernames,omitempty"`
}

So the signal for node.login event will look like this (with corresponding data):

{
  "type": "node.login",
  "event": {
    "error": "",
    "settings": {},
    "account": {},
    "endUsernames": {} 
  }
}

Services in ./services/**/api.go

Services are registered in go-ethereum JSON-RPC server. To call such method, send request to statusgo/CallRPC endpoint.

For example:

### Send Contact Request
POST http://localhost:12345/statusgo/CallRPC

{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "wakuext_sendContactRequest",
    "params": [
        {
            "id": "0x048f0b885010783429c2298b916e24b3c01f165e55fe8f98fce63df0a55ade80089f512943d4fde5f8c7211f1a87b267a85cbcb3932eb2e4f88aa4ca3918f97541",
            "message": "Hi, Alice!"
        }
    ]
}

Notes

1. In this case, there's no limitation to the number of arguments, comparing to mobile/status.go, so ll method are supported.
2. Deprecated methods won't have a corresponding Deprecated: true

Usage

Start the app with the address to listen to:

status-backend --address localhost:12345

Or just use the root repo Makefile command:

make run-status-backend PORT=12345

Access the exposed API with any HTTP client you prefer:

• From your IDE:
  • JetBrains
  • VS Code
• From UI client:
  • Postman
  • Insomnia
• From command line:
  • Curl
• From your script:
  • Python
  • Go

Simple flows

In most cases to start testing you'll need some boilerplate. Below are the simple call flows for common cases.

Create account and login

1. InitializeApplication
2. CreateAccountAndLogin
3. wakuext_startMessenger
4. wallet_startWallet
5. settings_getSettings (temporary workaround, otherwise settings don't get saved into DB)

Login into account

1. InitializeApplication
2. LoginAccount
3. wakuext_startMessenger
4. wallet_startWallet