w3cli

💾 the w3 command line interface.

Getting started

Install the CLI from npm (requires Node 18 or higher):

npm install -g @web3-storage/w3cli

Login with this agent to act on behalf of the account associated with your email address:

w3 login alice@example.com

Create a new Space for storing your data and register it:

w3 space create Documents # pick a good name!

If you'd like to learn more about what is going on under the hood with w3up and its use of Spaces, UCANs, and more, check out the w3up-client README here.

Upload a file or directory:

w3 up recipies.txt

⚠️❗ Public Data 🌎: All data uploaded to w3up is available to anyone who requests it using the correct CID. Do not store any private or sensitive information in an unencrypted form using w3up.

⚠️❗ Permanent Data ♾️: Removing files from w3up will remove them from the file listing for your account, but that doesn’t prevent nodes on the decentralized storage network from retaining copies of the data indefinitely. Do not use w3up for data that may need to be permanently deleted in the future.

Commands

• Basics
  • w3 login
  • w3 up
  • w3 ls
  • w3 rm
  • w3 open
  • w3 whoami
• Space management
  • w3 space add
  • w3 space create
  • w3 space ls
  • w3 space use
  • w3 space info
• Capability management
  • w3 delegation create
  • w3 delegation ls
  • w3 delegation revoke
  • w3 proof add
  • w3 proof ls
• Key management
  • w3 key create
• UCAN-HTTP Bridge
  • w3 bridge generate-tokens
• Advanced usage
  • w3 can blob add
  • w3 can blob ls
  • w3 can blob rm
  • w3 can index add
  • w3 can space info ^{coming soon!}
  • w3 can space recover ^{coming soon!}
  • w3 can upload add
  • w3 can upload ls
  • w3 can upload rm

---

w3 login <email>

Authenticate this agent with your email address to get access to all capabilities that had been delegated to it.

w3 up <path> [path...]

Upload file(s) to web3.storage. The IPFS Content ID (CID) for your files is calculated on your machine, and sent up along with your files. web3.storage makes your content available on the IPFS network

• --no-wrap Don't wrap input files with a directory.
• -H, --hidden Include paths that start with ".".
• -c, --car File is a CAR file.
• --shard-size Shard uploads into CAR files of approximately this size in bytes.
• --concurrent-requests Send up to this many CAR shards concurrently.

w3 ls

List all the uploads registered in the current space.

• --json Format as newline delimited JSON
• --shards Pretty print with shards in output

w3 rm <root-cid>

Remove an upload from the uploads listing. Note that this command does not remove the data from the IPFS network, nor does it remove it from space storage (by default).

• --shards Also remove all shards referenced by the upload from the store. Use with caution and ensure other uploads do not reference the same shards.

w3 open <cid>

Open a CID on https://w3s.link in your browser. You can also pass a CID and a path.

# opens a browser to https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeidluj5ub7okodgg5v6l4x3nytpivvcouuxgzuioa6vodg3xt2uqle
w3 open bafybeidluj5ub7okodgg5v6l4x3nytpivvcouuxgzuioa6vodg3xt2uqle

# opens a browser to https://w3s.link/ipfs/bafybeidluj5ub7okodgg5v6l4x3nytpivvcouuxgzuioa6vodg3xt2uqle/olizilla.png
w3 open bafybeidluj5ub7okodgg5v6l4x3nytpivvcouuxgzuioa6vodg3xt2uqle/olizilla.png

w3 whoami

Print information about the current agent.

w3 space add <proof>

Add a space to the agent. The proof is a CAR encoded UCAN delegating capabilities over a space to this agent.

proof is a filesystem path to a CAR encoded UCAN, as generated by w3 delegation create or a base64 identity CID string as created by w3 delegation create --base64.

w3 space create [name]

Create a new w3 space with an optional name.

w3 space ls

List spaces known to the agent.

w3 space use <did>

Set the current space in use by the agent.

w3 space info

Get information about a space (by default the current space) from the service, including which providers the space is currently registered with.

• --space The space to get information about. Defaults to the current space.
• --json Format as newline delimited JSON

w3 delegation create <audience-did>

Create a delegation to the passed audience for the given abilities with the current space as the resource.

• --can A capability to delegate. To specify more than one capability, use this option more than once.
• --name Human readable name for the audience receiving the delegation.
• --type Type of the audience receiving the delegation, one of: device, app, service.
• --output Path of file to write the exported delegation data to.
• --base64 Format as base64 identity CID string. Useful when saving it as an environment variable.

# delegate space/info to did:key:z6M..., output as a CAR
w3 delegation create did:key:z6M... --can space/info --output ./info.ucan

# delegate admin capabilities to did:key:z6M..., output as a string
w3 delegation create did:key:z6M... --can 'space/*' --can 'upload/*' --can 'filecoin/*' --base64

# delegate write (not remove) capabilities to did:key:z6M..., output as a string
w3 delegation create did:key:z6M... \
  --can 'space/blob/add' \
  --can 'upload/add' \
  --can 'filecoin/offer' \
  --base64

w3 delegation ls

List delegations created by this agent for others.

• --json Format as newline delimited JSON

w3 delegation revoke <delegation-cid>

Revoke a delegation by CID.

• --proof Name of a file containing the delegation and any additional proofs needed to prove authority to revoke

w3 proof add <proof.ucan>

Add a proof delegated to this agent. The proof is a CAR encoded delegation to this agent. Note: you probably want to use w3 space add unless you know the delegation you received targets a resource other than a w3 space.

w3 proof ls

List proofs of delegated capabilities. Proofs are delegations with an audience matching the agent DID.

• --json Format as newline delimited JSON

w3 key create

Print a new key pair. Does not change your current signing key

• --json Export as dag-json

w3 bridge generate-tokens

Generate tokens that can be used as the X-Auth-Secret and Authorization headers required to use the UCAN-HTTP bridge.

See the UCAN Bridge specification for more information on how these are expected to be used.

• --can One or more abilities to delegate.
• --expiration Unix timestamp (in seconds) when the delegation is no longer valid. Zero indicates no expiration.
• --json If set, output JSON suitable to splat into the headers field of a fetch request.

w3 can blob add [path]

Store a blob file to the service.

w3 can blob ls

List blobs in the current space.

• --json Format as newline delimited JSON
• --size The desired number of results to return
• --cursor An opaque string included in a prior upload/list response that allows the service to provide the next "page" of results

w3 can blob rm <multihash>

Remove a blob from the store by base58btc encoded multihash.

w3 can space info <did>

w3 can space recover <email>

w3 can upload add <root-cid> <shard-cid> [shard-cid...]

Register an upload - a DAG with the given root data CID that is stored in the given shard(s), identified by CID.

w3 can upload ls

List uploads in the current space.

• --json Format as newline delimited JSON
• --shards Pretty print with shards in output
• --size The desired number of results to return
• --cursor An opaque string included in a prior upload/list response that allows the service to provide the next "page" of results
• --pre If true, return the page of results preceding the cursor

w3 can upload rm <root-cid>

Remove an upload from the current space's upload list. Does not remove blobs from the store.

Environment Variables

W3_PRINCIPAL

Set the key w3 should use to sign ucan invocations. By default w3 will generate a new Ed25519 key on first run and store it. Set it along with a custom W3_STORE_NAME to manage multiple custom keys and profiles. Trying to use an existing store with different keys will fail.

You can generate Ed25519 keys with ucan-key e.g. npx ucan-key ed

Usage

W3_PRINCIPAL=$(npx ucan-key ed --json | jq -r .key) W3_STORE_NAME="other" w3 whoami
did:key:z6Mkf7bvSNgoXk67Ubhie8QMurN9E4yaCCGBzXow78zxnmuB

Default unset, a random Ed25519 key is generated.

W3_STORE_NAME

Allows you to use w3 with different profiles. You could use it to log in with different emails and keep the delegations separate.

w3 stores state to disk using the conf module. W3_STORE_NAME sets the conf configName option.

Default w3cli

W3UP_SERVICE_URL

w3 will use the w3up service at https://up.web3.storage. If you would like to use a different w3up-compatible service, set W3UP_SERVICE_DID and W3UP_SERVICE_URL environment variables to set the service DID and URL endpoint.

Default https://up.web3.storage

W3UP_SERVICE_DID

w3 will use the w3up did:web:web3.storage as the service did. If you would like to use a different w3up-compatible service, set W3UP_SERVICE_DID and W3UP_SERVICE_URL environment variables to set the service DID and URL endpoint.

Default did:web:web3.storage

FAQ

Where are my keys and delegations stored?

In the system default user config directory:

• macOS: ~/Library/Preferences/w3access
• Windows: %APPDATA%\w3access\Config (for example, C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\w3access\Config)
• Linux: ~/.config/w3access (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/w3access)

Contributing

Feel free to join in. All welcome. Please read our contributing guidelines and/or open an issue!

License

Dual-licensed under MIT + Apache 2.0