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Version: v0.4.x

Aries Askar

Aries Askar provides secure, encrypted storage and cryptographic support for encrypting, decrypting, signing and verifying data. It also provides both the Wallet and StorageService implementations for the agent.

caution

Although Aries Askar is stable and already used in production in agents such as Aries Cloud Agent Python, support for Aries Askar in Aries Framework JavaScript is currently experimental. We recommend new projects to use Aries Askar from the start, and also to migrate existing projects to Aries Askar. However, projects may experience some issues. If you encounter any issues, please open an issue.

Currently, there are few limitations to using Aries Askar.

  • When running in Node.JS, only Node.JS 18 is supported for now. See Supported Node.JS versions for Aries Askar
  • Install scripts rely on bash command substitution to get the proper binaries for each system architecture and platform. Therefore, if you are under Windows, you must configure npm or yarn to use a bash-compliant shell (e.g. npm config set script-shell "C:\\Program Files\\git\\bin\\bash.exe")
tip

If you're upgrading from the Indy SDK to Aries Askar, see Migrating from an Indy SDK Wallet to Aries Askar

Installing Aries Askar​

When using Aries Framework JavaScript with Aries Askar, there are a few extra dependencies that need to be installed. We need to install the @aries-framework/askar package, which implements the needed interfaces for the agent. Secondly, we need to add native bindings for the specific platform @hyperledger/aries-askar-<platform>. Currently there are bindings for Node.JS, as @hyperledger/aries-askar-nodejs, and React Native as @hyperlegder/aries-askar-react-native.

yarn add @aries-framework/askar@^0.4.0 @hyperledger/aries-askar-nodejs@^0.1.0

Adding Aries Askar to the Agent​

After installing the dependencies, we can register the Askar Module on the agent.

import { Agent } from '@aries-framework/core'
import { agentDependencies } from '@aries-framework/node'
import { AskarModule } from '@aries-framework/askar'
import { ariesAskar } from '@hyperledger/aries-askar-nodejs'

const agent = new Agent({
  config,
  dependencies: agentDependencies,
  modules: {
    // Register the Askar module on the agent
    askar: new AskarModule({
      ariesAskar,
    }),
  },
})

Supported Node.JS versions for Aries Askar​

Due to an issue in ref-napi (which is used in the Node.JS bindings for Aries Askar), performance for Aries Askar in Node.JS is not as expected. A patched version for ref-napi has been published that fixes this issue, but this only works in Node.JS 18+.

To use Aries Askar in Node.JS, make sure you're using Node.JS 18 and patch the ref-napi package to point towards @2060.io/ref-napi in your package.json:

Using NPM overrides we can point the ref-napi package to @2060.io/ref-napi.

{
  "overrides": {
    "ref-napi": "npm:@2060.io/ref-napi"
  }
}
info

See the following issues for more information on the performance bottleneck