Background

libp2p is a networking stack and library modularized out of The IPFS Project, and bundled separately for other tools to use.

libp2p is the product of a long, and arduous quest of understanding -- a deep dive into the internet's network stack, and plentiful peer-to-peer protocols from the past. Building large-scale peer-to-peer systems has been complex and difficult in the last 15 years, and libp2p is a way to fix that. It 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.

To learn more, check out the following resources:

Roadmap

Our roadmap for go-libp2p can be found here: https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p/blob/master/ROADMAP.md This document represents current projects the go-libp2p team is focused on and provides an estimation of completion targets. It is a complementary roadmap to the overarching libp2p project roadmap: https://github.com/libp2p/specs/blob/master/ROADMAP.md

Usage

This repository (go-libp2p) serves as the entrypoint to the universe of packages that compose the Go implementation of the libp2p stack.

You can start using go-libp2p in your Go application simply by adding imports from our repos, e.g.:

import "github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p"

Examples

Examples can be found in the examples folder.

Dashboards

We provide prebuilt Grafana dashboards so that applications can better monitor libp2p in production. You can find the dashboard JSON files here.

We also have live Public Dashboards that you can check out to see real time monitoring in action.

Contribute

go-libp2p is MIT-licensed open source software. We welcome contributions big and small! Take a look at the community contributing notes. Please make sure to check the issues. Search the closed ones before reporting things, and help us with the open ones.

Guidelines:

read the libp2p spec
ask questions or talk about things in our discussion forums, or open an issue for bug reports, or #libp2p-implementers on Filecoin slack.
ensure you are able to contribute (no legal issues please -- we use the DCO)
get in touch with @libp2p/go-libp2p-maintainers about how best to contribute
have fun!

There's a few things you can do right now to help out:

Go through the modules below and check out existing issues. This would be especially useful for modules in active development. Some knowledge of IPFS/libp2p may be required, as well as the infrastructure behind it - for instance, you may need to read up on p2p and more complex operations like muxing to be able to help technically.
Perform code reviews.
Add tests. There can never be enough tests.

Supported Go Versions

We test against and support the two most recent major releases of Go. This is informed by Go's own security policy.

Notable Users

Some notable users of go-libp2p are:

Kubo - The original Go implementation of IPFS
Lotus - An implementation of the Filecoin protocol
Drand - A distributed random beacon daemon
Prysm - An Ethereum Beacon Chain consensus client built by Prysmatic Labs
Berty - An open, secure, offline-first, peer-to-peer and zero trust messaging app.
Wasp - A node that runs IOTA Smart Contracts built by the IOTA Foundation
Mina - A lightweight, constant-sized blockchain that runs zero-knowledge smart contracts
Polygon Edge - A modular, extensible framework for building Ethereum compatible networks
Celestia Node - The Go implementation of Celestia's data availability nodes
Status go - Status bindings for go-ethereum, built by Status.im
Flow - A blockchain built to support games, apps, and digital assets built by Dapper Labs
Swarm Bee - A client for connecting to the Swarm network
MultiversX Node - The Go implementation of the MultiversX network protocol
Sonr - A platform to integrate DID Documents, WebAuthn, and IPFS and manage digital identity and assets.
EdgeVPN - A decentralized, immutable, portable VPN and reverse proxy over p2p.
Kairos - A Kubernetes-focused, Cloud Native Linux meta-distribution.
Oasis Core - The consensus and runtime layers of the Oasis protocol.
Spacemesh - The Go implementation of the Spacemesh protocol, a novel layer one blockchain
Tau - Open source distributed Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Please open a pull request if you want your project (min. 250 GitHub stars) to be added here.

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The Go implementation of the libp2p Networking Stack.

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