justmert commented 1 year ago

`PEER-CLI`: Swiss Army Knife for the IPFS

Proposal Category: app-dev

Proposer: justmert

(Optional) Technical Sponsor: No

Do you agree to open source all work you do on behalf of this RFP and dual-license under MIT, APACHE2, or GPL licenses?: Yes, MIT

This grant proposal initially sent as open-grant proposal #1164. It is now moved to the Microgrants program with @ErinOCon's advice.

Project Description

Applications built on the IPFS protocol generally tends to be Web applications built with a centralized client-server architecture with some price modeling and payment system. With these applications, interacting IPFS can be very cumbersome and time-consuming process.

If a simple user wants to save contents of a directory in IPFS to the local file system or navigate in the IPFS Mutable File System without the web applications, which is a very common use case, he/she has to interact with IPFS node directly with ipfs-cli. This is not a very user-friendly experience. A simple IPFS user should be able to interact with IPFS without any technical knowledge.

PEER-CLI is a command-line tool that is the swiss army knife for the IPFS. It combines solutions to the problems mentioned above in one single CLI tool. It is a simple, easy-to-use, and user-friendly tool that lets you interact with IPFS without any technical knowledge with simple menu-based user interface. It can be used, to:

Upload files and directories to the IPFS,
Get the contents of the files and directories from the IPFS and save them locally,
List/show the contents of the files and directories in the IPFS and navigate each of them
Manipulate IPFS Mutable File System with all IPFS supported file operations.

It is built with Node.js and uses the ipfs-core library.

Project Github Page

Peer-CLI List

Project Links

Link to Github repo: Project Github Page Link to demo or website, if applicable: NPM Registry License: MIT

Value

PEER-CLI is a necessary tool for the IPFS ecosystem. It brings the simple user together with the great technical infrastructure of IPFS. Besides, developers or advanced users can use it to interact with IPFS quickly without any intermediate apps. PEER-CLI directly uses the IPFS node that is built in the application itself, so it is very fast and efficient. Uploading a directory to the IPFS with PEER-CLI or saving a directory from the IPFS to the local file system takes less than 8 seconds (download or upload time is not included).

It is built with Node.js and uses the ipfs-core. It is a very lightweight tool that is easy to install and use. It is also very easy to extend and add new features to it.

Using it wrong does not pose any risk to the IPFS ecosystem or for the user. Because there is no payment system or price modeling in the application (since it is free), it is not possible to lose any money. Also, it is not possible to lose any data because it is not possible to delete any data from the IPFS with this tool. All IPFS functionalities can be replicated with ipfs-cli tool (with more compelling way, of course).

Deliverables

An easy to install, fast and lightweight CLI tool.
Simple and user-friendly menu-based user interface .
Easily uplading files and directories to the IPFS.
- Providing a progress bar for the upload process.
- Fuzzy search for the files and directories.
- Uploaded file/directory CID is automatically added to OrbitDB database for the user, thus it is possible to access the the CID later (or from any other device).
Ability to get/show the contents of the files and directories from the IPFS and save them to user given path in local file system.
Ability to list/show the contents of the files and directories in the IPFS and navigate each of them.
- If the provided CID is a directory, it can lists the contents of the directory or if it is a file, it can shows the contents of the file.
- If the provided CID has a recursive file structure, user can navigate freely.
- Can save the contents to the local file system while navigating.
Ability to manipulate IPFS Mutable File System,
- Support for all IPFS supported file operations.
- Unix shell like commands. (e.g. cd, ls, cat, mkdir etc.)
- Auto-completion for commands.
- Not only it supports ipfs paths, but also it supports CIDs. (e.g. cd /ipfs/Qm... or cd my_dir)
Validation of the edge cases, and error handling for the user.

Target Audience

PEER-CLI is a tool for the IPFS users who want to interact with IPFS without any technical knowledge. Anyone who uses command-line in their daily life can use it easily.

How will you improve your project with this grant? What steps will you take to meet this objective?

With this grant, I will maintain the project and publish version updates to the NPM registry as soon as possible. I will also provide support for the users who have problems with the application in issues section of the GitHub repository.

The PEER-CLI will stay as open source and free to use so, anyone can contribute to the project and make it better by fixing bugs or adding new features to it. If someone wants to contribute, they can freely do it and make a pull request. I will review the pull requests and merge it if it is good enough.

Also with this grant, the project will observe the ipfs-core changes and update the project accordingly. It will also be updated to support the new IPFS features.

Do you agree to share grant reports upon request, including a final grant report at the end of the three month period?

Yes, I agree.

Does your proposal comply with our Community Code of Conduct?

Yes, it complies.

Team Members

Mert Köklü LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mertkoklu/ Github: https://github.com/justmert Stack Overflow: https://stackoverflow.com/users/10515117/mert-köklü

Relevant Experience

I am the founding vice-chair of ACM Student Chapter, Ambassador for many organizations like Microsoft and Certified Instructor of NVIDIA. In Web3 ecosystem, I am a Graph Advocate of The Graph and Aave Turkey Community Co-Manager. Interested in Web3 ecosystem projects with strong technical infrastructures like IPFS and FVM (Filecoin Virtual Machine). I have developed many projects under the Web3 ecosystem such as Aave API Telegram Bot and Kadena Chainweb Python Bindings with 3 years of work of professional experience in my career.

Team code repositories

https://github.com/justmert/peer-cli

Additional Information

I have learned about the Open Grants Program from the Filecoin Dev Grants page.

Email: kklumert@gmail.com Telegram: @mertkklu Discord: MertK#2634

justmert commented 1 year ago

Hi @ErinOCon, I have sent this proposal as open-grant proposal #1164 initially, but now I have moved to Microgrants as your advice. Thank you.

ErinOCon commented 1 year ago

Hi @justmert, this microgrant has been approved! We will send an email to confirm payment details.

filecoin-project / devgrants