SterL / unchained

Unchained is a multi-blockchain backend interface

Introduction

Unchained is a multi-blockchain backend interface with three main goals:

1. Provide a common interface to multiple blockchains
2. Provide additional information not always accessible from the node directly
3. Provide realtime updates about blockchain transactions (pending and confirmed)

Table Of Contents

• Helpful Docs
• Project Structure
• Coin Stack Components
• Dependencies
• Notes
• Initial Setup
• Ports
• Docker-Compose Local Dev Instructions
  • Prerequisites
  • Running
• Kubernetes Local Dev Instructions
  • Docker Desktop (macOS)
  • Minikube (Linux)

Helpful Docs

• Pulumi
• Kubernetes
• OpenAPI
• TSOA

Project Structure

• packages - shared internal packages across coinstacks
• coinstacks/common - common coinstack logic to reduce duplication
• coinstacks/{coin} - coin specific logic
• **/pulumi - pulumi infrastructure logic for deployment

Coin Stack Components

• Blockchain Full Node - coin specific daemon providing historical blockchain data (ie. bitcoind, geth, etc)
• Indexer - indexes transaction and balance history by address (if not provided by the node directly)
• Ingester - ingests blockchain data providing:
  • websocket notification of any newly confirmed or pending transactions
  • stream of historical transaction history
  • additional parsing logic not provided by the indexer or node
• Common API - a REST API that provides necessary data to a client in a common format across all blockchains

Dependencies

• Node.js
  • NVM (recommended to install Node.js and npm)
• Yarn
• Docker

Notes

• The ethereum coinstack is used in all examples. If you wish to run a different coinstack, just replace ethereum with the coinstack name you wish to run
• All paths are relative to the root unchained directory (ex. unchained/{path})
• All pulumi commands should be run in a pulumi/ directory (ex. pulumi/, coinstacks/ethereum/pulumi/)

Initial Setup

• Install Node.js LTS
  • (Optional) use nvm to automatically install the node version specified in .nvmrc

    nvm use

• Install Yarn

  npm install --global yarn

• Install dependencies and build:

  yarn && yarn build

Ports

• API: 31300
• MongoDB: 27017
• RabbitMQ: 30672
• RabbitMQ Admin: 31672

Docker-Compose Local Dev Instructions

Lightweight local development environment

Prerequisites

• Install docker-compose
• Copy sample env file:

  cp coinstacks/ethereum/sample.env coinstacks/ethereum/.env

• Fill out any missing environment variables

Running

• To spin up a coinstack:
  • API only (watcher service is for hot reloading):

    COINSTACK=ethereum docker-compose up api watcher

  • API + Ingester (more resource intensive):

    COINSTACK=ethereum docker-compose up

• To completely tear down the coinstack (including docker volumes):

  COINSTACK=ethereum docker-compose down -v

Toubleshooting: the api claims to be running on listening at http://localhost:3000; however in docker compose its actually running on http://localhost:31300

Kubernetes Local Dev Instructions

Mirrors production kubernetes environment as closely as possible

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Docker Desktop (macOS)

Minikube (Linux)