Announcing the Open-Sourcing of the Linera Web Client
Just as microchains further democratize Web3 performance and security, we believe the core development tools should be in the hands of the developers as well. Today, we’re excited to announce that our Linera Web Client is now open-source and public on our GitHub repository.
What’s in the Linera Web Client?
The Linera Web Client repository hosts essential components for building web applications on the Linera blockchain protocol. This includes:
Client Worker: Written in Rust, this component depends on the core linera-protocol repository and facilitates the core functionalities of the Linera Web Client.
Web Extension: Developed in TypeScript, the web extension integrates seamlessly with the client worker, providing a user-friendly interface for interacting with Linera microchains.
Why does this matter?
By open-sourcing our Web Client, we’re inviting developers worldwide to contribute, propose fixes, and enhance the Linera Web Client directly. We value having the community involved and will actively foster this collaborative environment. With the Linera Web Client, developers will be able to build scalable, low-latency Web3 applications leveraging Linera’s unique microchains architecture.
What is the current stage of development?
The Linera Web Client is in a demo stage and the application functionality is still in progress. It is capable of connecting to Linera validators and communicating with them, and the basic UI framework is in place. Many frontend development tasks in particular would be ideal for new contributors; we invite you to help us build the interface and client-side logic!
How to get started:
For development, use nix develop to set up your environment and pnpm build --watch for automatic rebuilds. Then, visit linera.dev to follow the base setup guide and start composing the Web Client by:
Building the Client Worker: Run wasm-pack build --target web from within the client-worker directory.
Building the Extension: Run pnpm install && pnpm build from within the extension directory to prepare it for loading into Chrome or Chromium.
Installation:
After successfully building, the extension can be loaded into Chrome or Chromium-based browsers:
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Open the settings menu of your browser.
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Select ‘Extensions’ → ‘Manage Extensions’.
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Enable ‘Developer mode’. This will show an option ‘Load unpacked’.
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Navigate to the extension/dist directory and select it.
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You’ve installed the extension! Pin it to your toolbar for easy access.
Contributing:
We encourage you to experiment with our repository on GitHub. Whether it’s through submitting pull requests or adding issues you’ve found, your input is invaluable as we chart a revolutionary path in onchain architecture—right in users’ browsers.
Stay Connected:
As always, this is just the beginning. We’ll continue to update and expand the Web Client to cover more functionalities, include additional features, and provide even more value to our growing developer community.
Looking forward to seeing your contributions in the repo. 
