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Provable Authn

In order to improve UX/DX and encourage seamless integration with App backends and services, fcl.authenticate has been upgraded.

Additional data is sent in the body of FCL:VIEW:READY:RESPONSE. This data includes what the wallet needs to build a message for signing with the user’s private key/s. The signature can be returned as part of an optional account-proof service with the FCL:VIEW:RESPONSE.

When provided by the wallet, this signature and additional account-proof data is available to the App via fcl.currentUser services. The service data can be used to recreate the message, and verify the signature on the Flow Blockchain.

For example, it can be sent to the App’s backend and after validating the signature and the other account-proof data, it can safely associate the included account address to a user and log them in.

TL;DR Wallet Provider​

  1. Wallet receives Authn FCL:VIEW:READY:RESPONSE request and parses out the appIdentifier, and nonce.
  2. The wallet authenticates the user however they choose to do, and determines the user's account address
  3. The wallet must validate the appIdentifier against the RFC 6454 origin of the request if it matches the format of a RFC 3986 URI. Requests with a mismatch should be rejected. Some legacy systems may use arbitrary strings as appIdentifier and not RFC 6454 origins. In this case, wallets should display a warning to the user that the app identifier does not match the origin of the request.
  4. Wallet prepares and signs the message:
    • Encodes the appIdentifier, nonce, and address along with the "FCL-ACCOUNT-PROOF-V0.0" domain separation tag, using the encoding scheme described below.
    • Signs the message with the signatureAlgorithm and hashAlgorithm specified on user's key. It is highly recommended that the wallet display the message data and receive user approval before signing.
  5. Wallet sends back this new service and data along with the other service configuration when completing Authn.

Account Proof Message Encoding​

The account proof message is encoded as follows:


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MESSAGE =
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USER_DOMAIN_TAG ||
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RLP_ENCODE([
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APP_IDENTIFIER,
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ADDRESS,
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NONCE
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])

with the following values:

  • ACCOUNT_PROOF_DOMAIN_TAG is the constant "FCL-ACCOUNT-PROOF-V0.0", encoded as UTF-8 byte array and right-padded with zero bytes to a length of 32 bytes.
  • APP_IDENTIFIER is an arbitrary length string.
  • ADDRESS is a byte array containing the address bytes, left-padded with zero bytes to a length of 8 bytes.
  • NONCE is an byte array with a minimum length of 32 bytes.

RLP_ENCODE is a function that performs RLP encoding and returns the encoded value as bytes.

JavaScript Signing Example​


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// Using WalletUtils
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import {WalletUtils} from "@onflow/fcl"
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WalletUtils.onMessageFromFcl(
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(data, {origin}) => {
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const {address, nonce, appIdentifier} = data.data
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// Check if the appIdentifier is a valid RFC 3986 URI
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if (!isRfc3986Uri(appIdentifier)) {
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// Warn the user that the appIdentifier does not match the origin and to proceed with caution
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} else if (origin !== appIdentifier) {
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// Reject the request if the appIdentifier is a valid RFC 3986 URI but does not match the origin
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throw new Error("Invalid appIdentifier")
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}
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const message = WalletUtils.encodeAccountProof(
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appIdentifier, // A human readable string to identify your application during signing
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address, // Flow address of the user authenticating
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nonce, // minimum 32-btye nonce
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)
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sign(privateKey, message)
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// Without using FCL WalletUtils
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const ACCOUNT_PROOF_DOMAIN_TAG = rightPaddedHexBuffer(
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Buffer.from("FCL-ACCOUNT-PROOF-V0.0").toString("hex"),
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32
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)
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const message = rlp([appIdentifier, address, nonce])
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const prependUserDomainTag = (message) => ACCOUNT_PROOF_DOMAIN_TAG + message
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sign(privateKey, prependUserDomainTag(message))
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}
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)


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// Authentication Proof Service
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{
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f_type: "Service", // Its a service!
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f_vsn: "1.0.0", // Follows the v1.0.0 spec for the service
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type: "account-proof", // the type of service it is
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method: "DATA", // Its data!
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uid: "awesome-wallet#account-proof", // A unique identifier for the service
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data: {
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f_type: "account-proof",
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f_vsn: "1.0.0"
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// The user's address (8 bytes, i.e 16 hex characters)
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address: "0xf8d6e0586b0a20c7",
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// Nonce signed by the current account-proof (minimum 32 bytes in total, i.e 64 hex characters)
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nonce: "75f8587e5bd5f9dcc9909d0dae1f0ac5814458b2ae129620502cb936fde7120a",
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signatures: [CompositeSignature],
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}
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}

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