Announcing ic-use-internet-identity - A React Hook for easy integration of Internet Identity

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This package is a companion hook to ic-use-actor. The hook makes it easy to integrate Internet Identity into your React application. It provides a simple interface for logging in and out with the Internet Identity service.

The goal of this hook is not to provide the most customisable II integration, it is to make it super easy to add login features to React ICP apps. Try it out and let me know what you think! Any features missing?

The easiest way to try it out is to fork the demo/template application. It is built with TS, Vite and TailwindCSS.

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Features

  • Cached Identity: The identity is cached in local storage and restored on page load. This allows the user to stay logged in even if the page is refreshed.
  • Login progress: State varibles are provided to indicate whether the user is logged in, logging in, or logged out.
  • Works with ic-use-actor: Plays nicely with ic-use-actor that provides easy access to canister methods.

Installation

npm install ic-use-internet-identity

Usage

[!TIP]
For a complete example, see the ic-use-internet-identity-demo demo project.

To use ic-use-internet-identity in your React application, follow these steps:

1. Setup the InternetIdentityProvider component

Wrap your application’s root component with InternetIdentityProvider to provide all child components access to the identity context.

// main.tsx

import { InternetIdentityProvider } from "ic-use-internet-identity";
import React from "react";
import ReactDOM from "react-dom/client";

ReactDOM.createRoot(document.getElementById("root")!).render(
  <React.StrictMode>
    <InternetIdentityProvider>
      <App />
    </InternetIdentityProvider>
  </React.StrictMode>
);

2. Connect the login() function to a button

Calling login() opens up the Internet Identity service in a new window where the user is asked to sign in. Once signed in, the window closes and the identity is stored in local storage. The identity is then available in the identity context variable.

Use the loginStatus state variable to track the status of the login process. The loginStatus can be one of the following values: idle, logging-in, success, or error.

// LoginButton.tsx

import { useInternetIdentity } from "ic-use-internet-identity";

export function LoginButton() {
  const { login, loginStatus } = useInternetIdentity();

  const disabled = loginStatus === "logging-in" || loginStatus === "success";
  const text = loginStatus === "logging-in" ? "Logging in..." : "Login";

  return (
    <button onClick={login} disabled={disabled}>
      {text}
    </button>
  );
}

3. Use the identity context variable to access the identity

The identity context variable contains the identity of the currently logged in user. The identity is available after successfully loading the identity from local storage or completing the login process.

The preferred way to use the identity is to connect it to the ic-use-actor hook. The hook provides a typed interface to the canister methods as well as interceptor functions for handling errors etc.

// Actors.tsx

import { ReactNode } from "react";
import {
  ActorProvider,
  createActorContext,
  createUseActorHook,
} from "ic-use-actor";
import {
  canisterId,
  idlFactory,
} from "path-to/your-service/index";
import { _SERVICE } from "path-to/your-service.did";
import { useInternetIdentity } from "ic-use-internet-identity";

const actorContext = createActorContext<_SERVICE>();
export const useActor = createUseActorHook<_SERVICE>(actorContext);

export default function Actors({ children }: { children: ReactNode }) {
  const { identity } = useInternetIdentity();

  return (
    <ActorProvider<_SERVICE>
      canisterId={canisterId}
      context={actorContext}
      identity={identity}
      idlFactory={idlFactory}
    >
      {children}
    </ActorProvider>
  );
}

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