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Getting Started

About bee-js​

bee-js simplifies development on Swarm by abstracting away many of finer details and quirks of the Bee API so that you can focus on building your dream DAPP with minimal hassle. It's the easiest way to get started developing on Swarm.

Installation​

npm install @ethersphere/bee-js --save

After that you need to import the Bee class and create a bee instance connecting to your Bee node (here we assume it runs on localhost on default port).

Be aware, if you will pass invalid URL the constructor will throw an exception!

import { Bee } from "@ethersphere/bee-js"

const bee = new Bee('http://localhost:1633')

That’s it! now you can use the bee object.

Run your own Bee node

You can find out more about running Bee node in the Bee docs

Using <script> import

If you include bee-js using the unpkg.com script link then all the exported components will be available to you under global namespace BeeJs:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/@ethersphere/bee-js/dist/index.browser.min.js"></script>
<script>
  const bee = new BeeJs.Bee('...')
</script>

Quickstart With create-swarm-app​

The create-swarm-app tool makes it easy to get started developing on Swarm. With a single command, it generates the basic scaffolding for a bee-js project in your chosen development environment (CommonJS, ESM, TypeScript, or Vite + TypeScript).

WSL WARNING

The create-swarm-app tool is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. However, using it in combination with WSL is discouraged due to potential compatibility issues that may require additional troubleshooting.

That said, the bee-js library itself works seamlessly within WSL. If you prefer to develop your project using WSL, you can use create-swarm-app to generate the project files on the Windows side, then move them into your WSL environment for development.

You can use create-swarm-app to quickly set up scaffolding for a bee-js project with the following command:

npm init swarm-app@latest app-name app-type

Replace "app-name" with your app's name, and "app-type" with the type of app you want. Supported types are node, node-esm, node-ts and vite-tsx.

Start a Swarm project using TypeScript:

npm init swarm-app@latest my-dapp node-ts

Your project structure will look like:

.
├── package.json
├── src
│   ├── config.ts
│   └── index.ts
└── tsconfig.json

or using Vite and TypeScript:

npm init swarm-app@latest my-dapp vite-tsx

Your project structure will look like:

tree .
.
├── index.html
├── package.json
├── src
│   ├── App.tsx
│   ├── config.ts
│   └── index.tsx
└── tsconfig.json

The exact results will differ slightly depending on which app-type you use, but they will all include a config.ts or config.js file where the Bee node's API endpoint must be specified.

The endpoint is set to the default Bee API endpoint of http://localhost:1633, if your node uses a different endpoint you will need to update it in the config file.