README.md

description
Helpful reference materials for the Filecoin specification, implementations, and ecosystem.

General

About Filecoin

• Filecoin Specification - technical specification for Filecoin protocol and its associated subsystems.
• Filecoin Slack - announcements and open discussion of Filecoin.
• Filecoin Orbit Community Program - the Filecoin Orbit Community Program is an effort of dozens of volunteers around the world to organize meetups and hackathons in their local jurisdictions.
• Filecoin YouTube channel - various Filecoin workshops, conference talks, and meetups.

Filecoin Network

Node implementations

• Lotus - Recommended most advanced implementation and security audited, in GoLang.
• Other implementations:
  • Venus - also in GoLang (Venus documentation).
  • Forest - Rust.
• Lotus Docker Hub Images (unofficial):
  • glif/lotus
  • textile/lotus

Networks

network.filecoin.io - lists all current Filecoin networks and related information.

• Mainnet
  • Mainnet network status - reports the status and incident of the Filecoin Mainnet.
• Calibration
  • Largest testnet which support 32 GiB and 64 GiB sectors.
  • See #fil-net-calibration-discuss for questions and discussion in Filecoin Slack.
• Local Devnet
  • Run a Local Devnet using Lotus.

Network status

Tools to check status and details of the network and chain.

Block explorers

• Filfox.info - Mainnet
• Filscan - Mainnet & Calibration

Chain data and monitoring

• Starboard - network health monitoring
• Filstats.io - node telemetry monitoring - add your node!
• Sentinel Project - Filecoin Network Monitoring and Analysis System
• DataCapStats - data providing insight on the Filecoin Plus program.

Storage/Deals status

• Starboard - Filecoin storage provider analytics
• filecoin.tools - check your CID’s storage deal status. Also provides an API - check filecoin.tools/docs for reference
• Deals list at Filfox.io

Storage Web Applications

Web-based applications that store your data on Filecoin. No command-line or coding experience required.

• ChainSafe Files - Dropbox-style UI, login with OAuth or general MetaMask
• Starling Framework for Data Integrity
  • to securely capture, store and verify human history
  • learn more at starlinglab.org/78days or the Filecoin blog interview
  • Starlingstorage.io - API + CLI that simplified storing data to a local Lotus node for preservation use cases.

APIs & Developer tools

Developer tools, API clients & storage services that developers can use to build on Filecoin.

Storage APIs for app builders

• Lighthouse - Lighthouse offers a suite of tools to enable builders to store data on Filecoin when biulding apps.
• NFT.storage - Preserve your NFTs with our new low-cost, easy-to-use solution, ensuring verifiable long-term storage on Filecoin.
• Web3.storage - service from Protocol Labs for storing off-chain dApp data on IPFS and Filecoin, with help from Pinata (a fast IPFS Pinning Service) to distribute the content across IPFS
• Textile.io's tools - suite of tools for interacting with IPFS and Filecoin, including Tableland and Filecoin bridges to Polygon and NEAR.
• Fleek’s tools - provides access to Fleek’s hosted services using IPFS, Textile, Filecoin, Ethereum, etc. More Fleek developer resources are available at Fleek.xyz.
  • Space SDK - modular JavaScript/Typescript library and set of interfaces that packages tools and features enabled by Open Web protocols like IPFS, Textile, Filecoin, and Ethereum.
  • Space Daemon - packages together IPFS and tools from Textile into one easy to install background service.

Message signing tools

• Filecoin Signing Tools - Recommended a pure JS or Rust / WASM / JSONRPC library for creating signed messages apart from a Filecoin node.
  • For an open source example of how to use it see the Glif web wallet on GitHub.
• Filecoin JS Signer - [last update: June 2021] pure TS / JS library for creating signed messages and interacting with Filecoin’s built-in Actors (like Payment Channel and Multisig), used by the Filecoin Loans grant project.
  • On npm at @blitslabs/filecoin-js-signer

Wallet-related tools

• Filecoin Rosetta API Proxy - Rosetta is an API standard created by Coinbase for a consistent interface to many chains for wallets and exchanges.
• FilSnap MetaMask Plugin - MetaMask has a new plugin system currently still in beta that developers can try out. The MM UI will not change but Filecoin keys are in the MM vault.

Node Infrastructure & APIs

NOTE: making deep calls into the chain’s history may take some time to return and it may be more efficient to use a chain database (e.g. used by block explorers) that stores the chain’s history and is optimized for queries.

• GLIF nodes - A hosted endpoint to Filecoin mainnet and testnet. Note: as of Q1 2023, Infura no longer supports Filecoin.
  • The GLIF endpoint supports read-only calls and MPoolPush() for sending signed transactions to the network (which can be signed using the Message signing tools).
• Lotus JSON-RPC API - Lotus offers the full feature set of its capabilities through API.
  • lotus API Postman sample - (shows sample wallet calls only)

Scalable endpoint hosting

For running a node cluster of load balanced Lotus JSON RPC API endpoints.

• Filecoin-chart (k8 cluster) - Helm chart for hosting Lotus Node clients.

Filecoin API clients

• Filecoin.js (outdated) - higher-level JS library for interacting with Lotus via JSON-RPC API.
• js-lotus-client - lower-level JS wrapper for basic parsing of the Lotus JSON RPC API.
• lotus-json-rpc-provider (outdated) - wraps the Lotus API in TypeScript.

Storage provider index API

• Filrep.io API - A suite of RESTFul JSON endpoints to discover the best storage provider to make deals with.

Data prep tools

• CAR files - automatically used on Lotus import for less than 32 and 64 GiB, Filecoin archive format serialized from DAGs, see also building with the Lotus API.
• go-graphsplit - FileDrive chunks a larger single DAG for storage in default Filecoin 32 and 64 GiB sector sizes.
• IPFS - you can use ipfs add with an IPFS node then add the CID from a Filecoin node.

Databases using IPFS and Filecoin

• Tableland - (new) create familiar SQL tables to read and write dynamic NFT metadata or application data for dApps, from Textile.
• OrbitDB - decentralized multi-party database on IPFS with multi-party syncing with topic pubsub and CRDTs.
• ThreadsDB - decentralized multi-party database for user-siloed data on IPFS, from Textile.

Other developer tools

• js-rle - RLE+ Spec. Learn about rle-bitset-encoding in the Filecoin Spec.
• Truffle for Filecoin - building apps to preserve files to IPFS and Filecoin.

Storage providers

Storage provider reputation systems

• Filrep.io - Index of online storage providers and their pricing, ranked by power and reputation score.
• SpaceGap - shows storage proof deadlines and sector details for the top 50 storage providers.

Storage provider tools

• Lotus Farcaster - Prometheus, Grafana and Python monitoring dashboard.

Storage client and miner programs

• Destor Network - a white glove service for storage provider and large institutional client onboarding to Filecoin.
• Filecoin Plus Verified Data Program
  • Incentivizes valuable data stored on Filecoin with a social trust network for verified data.
  • Clients can apply to allocators to receive DataCap and incentivize storage providers at 10x to their quality-adjusted power, increasing probability of block rewards.

Ecosystem

• Filecoin Ecosystem - explore the hundreds of projects in the Filecoin ecosystem using Filecoin Foundation's "Ecosystem Explorer."
• Upcoming Hackathons - keep a lookout for upcoming hackathons!
• Events - attend a Filecoin event to engage with other ecosystem members.

Grants and accelerators

• Filecoin Developer Grants - ongoing monthly developer grant program to support open source projects and new Open Grants on Filecoin.