Interfaces

Regen Ledger provides three interfaces for interacting with a node:

• Command-Line Interface
• gRPC Interface
• REST Interface

Command-Line Interface

When referring to the command-line interface for the Regen Ledger application, we are referring to the regen binary. The regen binary serves as the node client and the application client, meaning the regen binary can be used to both run a node and interact with it.

The regen binary is the all-in-one program for Regen Ledger. It can manage keys, run nodes, query state, and generate, sign, and broadcast transactions. If you are comfortable using the command-line, playing around with the regen binary is a great way to learn about Regen Ledger.

To learn more about the available commands, install regen and run the following:

regen --help

For transaction commands, run the following:

regen tx --help

For query commands, run the following:

regen query --help

For documentation on all available commands, see Commands.

gRPC Interface

gRPC is a modern RPC framework that leverages protocol buffers for encoding requests and responses between a client and service. Regen Ledger uses gRPC primarily for querying blockchain state (credit or token balances, data signature records, etc).

As a client developer, you can query state using a gRPC library in the programming language of your choice by importing and generating code from the Regen Ledger Protobuf API.

In some programming languages, you may be able to leverage a pre-existing library to take care of most of the heavy lifting, including the compiling of protobuf messages. If you develop in Go, you can use the regen-ledger modules. If you develop in Typescript, check out regen-js.

Unlike the command-line interface, the gRPC interface can only be used to broadcast transactions. To generate and sign transactions, a developer will need to use another library such as keplr-wallet (see regen-js for an example using Typescript and Keplr).

In addition to using a gRPC library programmatically, you can also use grpcurl - a command-line tool that lets you interact with gRPC servers from the command-line.

If you have a local node running, you can list the available services using the following command:

grpcurl -plaintext localhost:9090 list

To execute a call, you can use the following format:

grpcurl \
    -plaintext \
    -d '{"address":"<address>"}' \
    localhost:9090 \
    cosmos.bank.v1beta1.Query/AllBalances

If you are running a local node and attempting to execute the above command but you are receiving an error, make sure the gRPC service is enabled in ~/.regen/config/app.toml.

For more information about the gRPC interface, check out the Cosmos SDK Documentation.

REST Interface

Regen Ledger leverages gRPC Gateway, which makes all gRPC services and methods available via REST endpoints. As a client developer, you can query state using an HTTP library in the programming language of your choice and without generating code from Regen Ledger Protobuf API.

Like the gRPC interface, the REST interface can only be used to broadcast transactions. To generate and sign transactions, a developer will need to use another library such as keplr-wallet (see regen-js for an example using Typescript and Keplr).

In addition to using an HTTP library programmatically, you can also use the curl command.

To execute a call, you can use the following format:

curl \
    -X GET \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    http://localhost:1317/cosmos/bank/v1beta1/balances/<address>

You can also use your browser: http://localhost:1317/cosmos/bank/v1beta1/balances/

If you are running a local node and the REST server is not working, make sure the REST service is enabled in ~/.regen/config/app.toml. If you enable Swagger, the OpenAPI documentation will be available at http://localhost:1317/swagger/.

For more information about the REST interface, check out the Cosmos SDK Documentation.