-🐦+ BirdCount

BirdCount comprises a proof of concept Stacks and Next.js app.

It implements a simple Clarity counter contract and knits together a web frontend interface, testing frameworks, integration environment, scripting setup, and static IPFS deployment workflow.

NOTE: THIS PROJECT AND SUPPORTING LIBRARIES HAVE NOT BEEN AUDITED, IT IS IN ALPHA STATE. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK / DISCRETION

Accessing BirdCount

To access BirdCount, use an IPFS gateway link from the latest release, or visit bird-count.com.

The counter is statically set at 15 but will fetch the counter state dynamically every 3 seconds using whichever network you have selected.

NOTE: mainnet is the default network and localnet only works in development mode due to browser security limitations (CORS and mixed content)

Running BirdCount

If you prefer not using the integration environment, BirdCount can be run locally and pointed at mainnet, regtest(with some limitations), or testnet. Skip ahead to Step 4 and for Steps 5 and 6 use another network.

1. To run BirdCount with the integration environment locally, install and run Docker Desktop.

2. Install Clarinet.

3. Clone this repository and bootstrap your localnet which consists of a Bitcoin node, Stacks node, Stacks API server, and Stacks and Bitcoin explorers:

cd bird-count
clarinet integrate

4. In a different terminal, install the dependencies and start the development server:

yarn && yarn run dev

5. In your browser, install the Hiro Wallet and select Change Network -> Localnet.

6. Open http://localhost:3000 with your browser to load the app. Click on Connect Stacks Wallet and make sure you are connected to Localnet, then use the + button to increment the counter. Open the Chrome DevTools to view the console and network queries.

Once your transaction has confirmed, the counter will automatically update.

Testing

To run the tests (both @clarigen/test and Clarinet examples are included), try:

$ yarn test
yarn run v1.22.10
$ jest && clarinet test tests/*.ts
 PASS  tests/clarigen/bird-count.test.ts (5.595 s)
  Counter contract
    ✓ initial counter is 0 (34 ms)
    ✓ increment counter (34 ms)
    ✓ decrement counter (28 ms)

Test Suites: 1 passed, 1 total
Tests:       3 passed, 3 total
Snapshots:   0 total
Time:        5.754 s
Ran all test suites.

Running file:///Projects/bird-count/tests/bird-count_test.ts
* get-bird-count returns u0 immediately after being deployed ... ok (22ms)
* increment function counts up ... ok (11ms)

test result: ok. 2 passed; 0 failed; 0 ignored; 0 measured; 0 filtered out (808ms)

✨  Done in 12.81s.

Each testing framework can also be run independently npx jest for the Clarigen test and clarinet test tests/bird-count_test.ts for the Clarinet one.

Scripts

There's an example node script written with @clarigen/node that will call the public increment function within the integration environment:

$ yarn ts-node scripts/increment.ts
yarn run v1.22.10
$ /Projects/bird-count/node_modules/.bin/ts-node scripts/increment.ts
http://localhost:3999/extended/v1/tx/0x10242276f35714c18ababdd36bd5a667383f4d820bdbeeb65c649808c82d74e7
✨  Done in 3.44s.

Translation

lingui is used for translations. To add a new translation, edit lingui.config.js. Then run:

yarn run lingui

TODO: document the other areas of the app that need to be edited to add a new langauge, control locale and text direction.

About

BirdCount was developed while participating in the first Clarity Universe cohort.

It was bootstrapped with create-next-app and then integrated with Clarinet (testing and integration) and Clarigen (testing and boilerplate). It utilizes micro-stacks to connect to Stacks and jotai-query-toolkit for managing query state.

The interface is currently built with components from MUI v5 and the styled-components library but that could change in the future if more flexible options become apparent (suggestions welcome!).

Implementing a fully static SSG build using Next.js export, "no compromises" DarkMode, i18n/l10n (including RTL support) are core principles of the project.

A Starter Project

BirdCount is intended to be a starting template for building more functional Stacks apps; it's been built as a proof of concept minimally viable app that's production ready and can be statically deployed on a censorship resistant network like IPFS. To that end, please fork it and build something!

Here are some things you can try:

• Add or modify a Clarity contract in ./contracts
• Run clarinet check
• Files in src/utils/clarigen are automatically generated by running yarn clarigen. The resulting boilerplate can be used for running tests and scripts (and eventually, when the @clarigen/web stabilizes, may power the web app itself.)
• Write new tests against your contract
• Create new pages in src/pages/ using src/pages/index.tsx, as an example. Next.js automatically creates routes for additional pages in that directory (e.g., see the about page).

Deploying

Deploying your app manually to IPFS to share your work is pretty simple once you have the IPFS Command-line installed, have done an ipfs init and have the daemon running:

yarn build && yarn export
ipfs add -r out
ipfs name publish /ipfs/<...Content Identifier (CID) of the out folder...>

When I started, I used to manually run the above, and I also set up an account at pinata to manually pin each release (to make sure at least one IPFS node has a copy):

ipfs pin remote add --service=pinata /ipfs/<...Content Identifier (CID) of the out folder...>

Now all of the above as well as a dnslink-based name resolution system are handled automatically via the Github Release workflow using Github encrypted secrets. SSL termination is handled using Cloudflare and pinning via Pinata. Yes, you have to actually email Cloudflare to ask them to set up the SSL certificate.

Pinning the latest releases

Anyone running ipfs can support the project by pinning the latest version.

First find the CID hash on the latest release page, or by running:

dig +short txt _dnslink.bird-count.com
"dnslink=/ipfs/<...Content Identifier (CID) of the out folder...>"

(alternatively, you can run ipfs dns bird-count.com to get the latest CID hash)

To pin this content, run:

ipfs pin add -r /ipfs/<...Content Identifier (CID) of the out folder...>

Contributions and TODO

If you'd like to contribute to the project, here's my current TODO list.

• Fix onboarding to connect (or install) the Hiro Wallet (auto-dismiss popup after connect)
• Infinite query to scan blocks for history and portably cache scanned blocks
• User-defined nodes and explorers
• Sync localStorage with gaia hub
• Scripts to help the community support the IPFS deployment
• Deployment scripts for contracts (regtest, testnet, mainnet)
• BirdCount V2! A per-principle counter. V1 will continue to be maintained indefinitely
• A more robust CI setup including yarn changeset
• Integrate an external translation service
• Refactor with @clarigen/web to power the web app

TOFIX:

• Mobile !
• Finish autocomplete search
• Import localStorage from json file
• Add completed transactions to drawer
• xx-YY locale support
• Fix background gradient with RTL locales

Design Caveats

• There is at times an error about a className missmatch when running yarn run dev, does not seem to effect production. See e.g., mui/material-ui#18018 and mui/material-ui#27088
• Most of the app is wrapped in NoSsr because Next.js does not currently support i18n static export. The main implication is that only the English version of the page is built during export and translations are loaded dynamically.
• Because of this limitation, the language pages are implemented using react-router-dom HashRouter rather than next router's usePath or domain endpoints, which is less than ideal for SEO but in my view is better than the alternative (no static export).
• The hosting environment (IPFS) can't produce responsive headers so that limits some interaction options. For example, the app can't perform an Accept-Language/Content-Language negotiation or respond to Clear-Site-Data.

Thank You

Huge thanks to both @aulneau and @hstove for helping get these elements working together nicely. Many thanks also to the countless others on the Interwebs, too numerous to individually cite, links to whom I tried to remember to embed within comments of the relevant area of the codebase.