Sphere Connect Example

Four runnable examples showing the different ways an app can work with a Sphere wallet — as a browser dApp, as a Node dApp, as a bot that runs its own wallet, or as a backend that just authenticates a user.

What is Sphere Connect?

Sphere Connect is a typed RPC protocol that lets a dApp talk to a user's Sphere wallet — reading balances, sending tokens, signing messages — without ever seeing the private keys. The dApp runs a ConnectClient; the wallet runs a ConnectHost; a transport carries messages between them.

dApp (ConnectClient)  ←→  Transport  ←→  Wallet (ConnectHost)

All five packages require @unicitylabs/sphere-sdk ≥ 0.14.1. Wallet hosts from 0.14.1 onward enforce an SDK version floor at the handshake: a client built on an older SDK is refused with UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL_VERSION (4007) before any approval UI appears, so a dApp that is not bumped simply stops connecting. The Connect protocol MAJOR is unchanged (still 2), which is all the gate compares — this is a dependency bump and a rebuild, nothing more. (SPHERE_CONNECT_VERSION is 2.3 in sphere-sdk 0.17.2 and 2.1 in the 0.14.2 pinned below.) See browser/CONNECT.md.

Not every example uses Connect: the bot runs its own wallet directly, and the backend in backend-auth only verifies a signature. See the guide below.

Which example do I need?

The examples differ along two axes: whose wallet your app uses, and what it needs to do with it.

Example	Your app is…	The wallet is…	Can move tokens?	Reach for it when…
browser/	a web page / dApp	the user's, elsewhere	✅ with per-action approval	your dApp runs in a browser and the user is present to approve each send — e.g. a browser game where the player approves in-game purchases
nodejs/	a Node CLI / service	the user's, over WebSocket	✅ with approval	you need a CLI / desktop / server dApp that drives a user's wallet over a WebSocket (see the caveat in its README)
bot/	an autonomous agent	its own (own keys, wallet-api custody)	✅ no approval — it owns the funds	you're building a tipping bot, faucet, game NPC that pays rewards, or an agent that acts from its own float with no human in the loop
backend-auth/	a frontend + backend	the user's (frontend only signs)	❌ auth only	you need to know who the player is — login, leaderboards, ownership, sessions — but do not need to move their tokens. Recommended for games/apps that need authenticated identity, not custody or intents

Rules of thumb:

• Need to move a user's tokens? → browser/ (web) or nodejs/ (Node over WS). The user approves each action.
• Moving your own tokens autonomously? → bot/. It is the wallet; no approval prompts.
• Just need to know who the user is? → backend-auth/. It authenticates and stops there — it never touches funds.

Quick Start

browser/ — web dApp over Connect

cd browser
npm install
npm run dev        # http://localhost:5174

Needs a Sphere wallet reachable at http://localhost:5173. See browser/README.md.

Testing a local dApp against the real (hosted) wallet? Serve the dApp over https on a publicly reachable host — an https tunnel (cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:5174, ngrok http 5174) is the quick way — and load that URL as a custom agent at https://sphere.unicity.network/agents/custom?url=<your-public-https-url>. (Applies to both browser/ and backend-auth/frontend.)

⚠ A localhost / 127.0.0.1 URL in that query string never reaches the wallet. Measured with curl on 2026-09-17: /agents/custom?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffoo.ngrok.app answers 200, and so do /connect and /connect?origin=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com — but any query string containing localhost or 127.0.0.1 answers 403 from CloudFront, on every route tested, with or without browser-like headers. It is a CDN/WAF rule about local URLs in the query, not the wallet refusing the popup route.

⚠ Independently, the url must be https. The wallet frames a custom tab only when the URL's protocol is https:, so a plain-http URL would not be framed even if it got through.

Popup and localhost stay fine against a Sphere wallet you run yourself on localhost:5173. See browser/README.md.

nodejs/ — Node dApp over WebSocket

cd nodejs
npm install
npm run server     # Terminal 1: mock wallet  (ws://localhost:8765)
npm run client     # Terminal 2: CLI dApp

Drives a wallet over WebSocketTransport. See nodejs/README.md.

bot/ — a bot with its own wallet

cd bot
npm install
cp .env.example .env    # WALLET_API_URL is REQUIRED — token custody lives there
npm start               # boots its own wallet on testnet2, self-mints, DM-echoes

No Connect involved — the bot is the wallet. Since sphere-sdk 0.14 there is no own-storage custody: Sphere.init throws INVALID_CONFIG without a walletApi composition, so WALLET_API_URL must be set. See bot/README.md.

backend-auth/ — sign in with a Sphere wallet

# Terminal 1 — backend  (http://localhost:8787)
cd backend-auth/backend  && npm install && cp .env.example .env && npm start
# Terminal 2 — frontend (http://localhost:5173)
cd backend-auth/frontend && npm install && cp .env.example .env && npm run dev

Frontend brokers a sign_message; backend recovers the pubkey and issues a JWT. See backend-auth/README.md.

Dependencies

All five packages pin the same published SDK version, exactly (no caret — these are examples, and pin clarity matters more than float):

"@unicitylabs/sphere-sdk": "0.14.2"

Documentation

• browser/CONNECT.md — full browser dApp integration guide
• sphere-sdk docs/CONNECT.md — protocol reference

License

MIT