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CUSTOM_PROTOBUF_CODECS.md

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Custom Protocol Buffer Codecs

As of v0.40, the Cosmos SDK uses Protocol Buffers (also known as "protobuf") as its standard serialization format for blockchain state and wire communication. CosmJS by default supports Protocol Buffer serialization for many of the standard queries and messages defined by the Cosmos SDK, as well as CosmWasm. This document explains how you can make use of Protocol Buffer serialization for your own custom modules with CosmJS.

Prerequisites

  • You are working on a TypeScript project. (Plain JS is possible but not covered by this document. It should work if you just strip out the type information.)
  • You have installed @cosmjs/proto-signing, @cosmjs/stargate and @cosmjs/tendermint-rpc as dependencies. In general these dependencies should all have the same version, and this document is accurate as of version 0.26. 
    "dependencies": {
  "@cosmjs/proto-signing": "^0.26.4",
  "@cosmjs/stargate": "^0.26.4",
  "@cosmjs/tendermint-rpc": "^0.26.4",
  // ...
}
  • You have installed ts-proto as a development dependency. This document is accurate as of version 1.84.
  • You have installed protoc. This document is accurate as of version 3.17.
  • This document assumes that the Protocol Buffer definitions which you need are already available somewhere in .proto files.

Step 1: Acquire the definition files

You will need these files locally. There are two ways this is typically done:

  1. Download copies from an external source into the project. For example, we used this script to download the definition files from the Cosmos SDK repository.
  2. Git submodules allow linking external repositories into the current project's git. This is done in the cosmjs-types repo.

If the proto files are not publicly available, the first way should be preferred. Otherwise permission management can become very complicated.

Step 2: Generate codec files

In CosmJS we use ts-proto to generate codec files, and in this document we assume you will follow the same route. Here is an example usage:

protoc \
  --plugin="./node_modules/.bin/protoc-gen-ts_proto" \
  --ts_proto_out="./path/to/output/directory" \
  --proto_path="./path/to/definitions" \
  --ts_proto_opt="esModuleInterop=true,forceLong=long,useOptionals=true" \
  "./path/to/definitions/file.proto" \
  "./path/to/definitions/another.proto"

Note that the available ts-proto options are described here. You can see the script we used for the @cosmjs/stargate package here.

Working with Yarn 2+

The binary ./node_modules/.bin/protoc-gen-ts_proto is not easily available when using Yarn 2 or higher. You also need to execute node through yarn. In such cases an executable wrapper script bin/protoc-gen-ts_proto_yarn_2 with

#!/usr/bin/env -S yarn node
require('ts-proto/build/plugin')

helps. The name of the script renames the protoc plugin from ts_proto to ts_proto_yarn_2 and the protoc must now be prefixed accordingly, like --ts_proto_yarn_2_opt="…".

A full example is available in the cosmjs-types repo: protoc-gen-ts_proto_yarn_2 and codegen.sh.

Step 3

In Step 2 we saw how the codec is generated (i.e. the TypeScript code generation). Now we look into using this codec. This section is split in

  • Step 3a: custom messages
  • Step 3b: custom queries

Step 3a: Instantiate a signing client using your custom message types

This section assumes that your definition files included MsgXxx message definitions for use in submitting transactions to a Cosmos SDK blockchain. You can instantiate a signing client for Stargate which supports those message types using a custom registry. We expose a Registry class from @cosmjs/proto-signing for you to use, which maps type URLs to codec objects. For example:

import { DirectSecp256k1HdWallet, Registry } from "@cosmjs/proto-signing";
import {
  defaultRegistryTypes as defaultStargateTypes,
  SigningStargateClient,
} from "@cosmjs/stargate";
import { MsgXxx } from "./path/to/generated/codec/my/custom/tx"; // Replace with your own Msg import

const myRegistry = new Registry(defaultStargateTypes);
myRegistry.register("/my.custom.MsgXxx", MsgXxx); // Replace with your own type URL and Msg class
const mnemonic = // Replace with your own mnemonic
  "economy stock theory fatal elder harbor betray wasp final emotion task crumble siren bottom lizard educate guess current outdoor pair theory focus wife stone";

// Inside an async function...
const signer = await DirectSecp256k1HdWallet.fromMnemonic(
  mnemonic,
  { prefix: "myprefix" }, // Replace with your own Bech32 address prefix
);
const client = await SigningStargateClient.connectWithSigner(
  "my.endpoint.com", // Replace with your own RPC endpoint
  signer,
  { registry: myRegistry },
);

Now when you want to sign and broadcast a transaction which contains a message of your custom type, the client will know how to serialize (and deserialize) it:

const myAddress = "wasm1pkptre7fdkl6gfrzlesjjvhxhlc3r4gm32kke3";
const message = {
  typeUrl: "/my.custom.MsgXxx", // Same as above
  value: MsgXxx.fromPartial({
    foo: "bar",
  }),
};
const fee = {
  amount: [
    {
      denom: "udenom", // Use the appropriate fee denom for your chain
      amount: "120000",
    },
  ],
  gas: "10000",
};

// Inside an async function...
// This method uses the registry you provided
const response = await client.signAndBroadcast(myAddress, [message], fee);

You can see a more complete example in Confio’s ts-relayer repo.

Step 3b: Instantiate a query client using your custom query service

This section assumes that your definition files included a Query service with rpc methods. ts-proto will generate a QueryClientImpl class which needs to be provided with an RPC client.

Creating an RPC client with the functionality required by this generated class currently requires a few layers of abstraction. Here is how you can achieve it using CosmJS helpers:

import { createProtobufRpcClient, QueryClient } from "@cosmjs/stargate";
import { Tendermint34Client } from "@cosmjs/tendermint-rpc";
import { QueryClientImpl } from "./path/to/generated/codec/my/custom/query";

// Inside an async function...
// The Tendermint client knows how to talk to the Tendermint RPC endpoint
const tendermintClient = await Tendermint34Client.connect("my.endpoint.com");

// The generic Stargate query client knows how to use the Tendermint client to submit unverified ABCI queries
const queryClient = new QueryClient(tendermintClient);

// This helper function wraps the generic Stargate query client for use by the specific generated query client
const rpcClient = createProtobufRpcClient(queryClient);

// Here we instantiate a specific query client which will have the custom methods defined in the .proto file
const queryService = new QueryClientImpl(rpcClient);

// Now you can use this service to submit queries
const queryResult = await queryService.MyCustomQuery({
  foo: "bar",
});

Additionally, we provide a system for extending @cosmjs/stargate’s QueryClient with methods of your own design, wrapping those of the query service. For this you will need to define your own setupXxxExtension functions and pass them to the QueryClient.withExtensions static method like this:

// Define your extensions
function setupXxxExtension(base: QueryClient) {
  const rpcClient = createProtobufRpcClient(base);
  const queryService = new QueryClientImpl(rpcClient);

  return {
    mymodule: {
      customQuery: async (foo: string) =>
        queryService.MyCustomQuery({ foo: foo }),
    },
  };
}
function setupYyyExtension(base: QueryClient) {
  // ...
}

// Setup the query client
const queryClient = QueryClient.withExtensions(
  tendermintClient,
  setupXxxExtension,
  setupYyyExtension,
  // You can add up to 18 extensions
);

// Inside an async function...
// Now your query client has been extended
const queryResult = await queryClient.mymodule.customQuery("bar");

You can see how CosmJS sets up the bank extension for its default query client here.