hyperkeys

Keychain that derives deterministic Ed25519 keypairs for Hypercore

npm install hyperkeys

Usage

const Keychain = require('hyperkeys')

const keys = new Keychain()

const cur = keys.get() // returns the current keypair instance
const foo = keys.get('foo') // tweaks and returns a keypair instancoe for 'foo'

const sub = keys.sub('bar') // get a sub keychain tweaked by 'bar'
const subsub = sub.sub('baz') // sub the the sub chain

// to sign things

const sig = cur.sign(message)
const publicKey = cur.publicKey

API

keys = new Keychain(publicKeyOrKeyPair)

Make a new Keychain instance.

const keys = new Keychain() // generates a fresh keypair for you
const keys = new Keychain(publicKey) // generate a "readonly" keychain
const keys = new Keychain(keyPair) // generate a keychain from a keypair

keys.home

Points to the keypair that was used to construct the Keychain.

keys.base

Points to current checkout, or home if not checkout was made.

keys.tweak

Points to the current tweak used.

keys.head

The key pair of this chain, basically base + tweak.

keys = Keychain.from(keyChainOrPublicKeyOrKeyPair)

Same as above, except it will return the Keychain if passed to it. Useful to avoid a peer dependency on the Keychain in your application, ie

const Keychain = require('hyperkeys')

function myModule (keychain) {
  const keys = Keychain.from(keychain) // ensures the version of keys is the one you installed
}

keyPairInstance = keys.get([nameOrKeyPair])

Get a new KeyPair instance from the Keychain. Optionally you can provide a name or key pair to tweak the keypair before returning it.

const k = keys.get() // get a keypair instance from the current head
const k = keys.get('name') // tweak it with "name" first
const k = keys.get(keyPair) // tweak it with this keypair first

keychain = keys.sub(nameOrKeyPair)

Make a new sub Keychain, tweaked from a name or key pair.

const keychain = keys.sub('name') // tweak the current keychain
const keychain = keys.sub({ publicKey: ... }) // new "readonly" keychain
const keychain = keys.sub({ publicKey: ..., scalar: ... }) // same as above to "writable" as well

Note that the following keypairs are equivalent

const k = keys.get('name')
const k = keys.sub('name').get()

All tweaks are "one way", meaning the actual tweak used is

tweakSeed = blake2b([currentTweak ? currentTweak.publicKey : blank, tweakInput])

Ie, you need to know the previous tweak to get to it.

keychain = keys.checkout(publicKeyOrKeyPair)

Get a new Keychain, based on an "absolute" keypair or public key. This preserves the "home" pointer, meaning you can get from a checkout to your home keychain by doing

const c = keys.checkout(somePublicKey)
// go back to home
const h = c.checkout(c.home)

License

MIT