Introduction to Aleph.im

The Aleph.im network can be accessed from any API server. To run one yourself, you will need to install PyAleph.

Data retrieval

Data retrieval is simple, using ReST APIs on any API server. There is a few helpers available in this library (depending on the requested data type).

Data structures

All data transfered over the aleph.im network are aleph messages.

@startuml entity Message { .. Message info .. *type : text one of: POST, AGGREGATE, STORE *channel : text (channel of the message, one application ideally has one channel) *time : timestamp .. Sender info .. *sender : text <<address>> *chain : text (chain of sender: NULS, NULS2, ETH, BNB...) -- Content -- *item_hash <<hash>> if IPFS: multihash of json serialization of content if internal storage: hash of the content (sha256 only for now) if inline: hash of item_content using hash_type (sha256 only for now) *item_content : text <<json>> mandatory if of inline type, json serialization of the message #item_type : text (optional) one of: 'ipfs', 'inline', 'storage'. default: 'ipfs' if no item_content and hash length 56, 'storage' if length 64, 'inline' if there is an item_content. #hash_type : text (optional) default: sha256 (only supported value for now) } hide circle @enduml

Actual content sent by regular users can currently be of two types:

  • AGGREGATE: a key-value storage specific to an address
  • POST: unique data posts (unique data points, events

@startuml object Message { ... } object Aggregate <<message content>> { key : text address : text <<address>> ~ content : object time : timestamp } object Post <<message content>> { type : text address : text <<address>> ~ content : object time : timestamp } object Store <<message content>> { address : text <<address>> item_type : same than Message.item_type (note: does not support inline) item_hash : same than Message.item_hash time : timestamp } Message ||--o| Aggregate Message ||--o| Post Message ||--o| Store @enduml