@peculiar/webcrypto

We wanted to be able to write Javascript that used crypto on both the client and the server but we did not want to rely on Javascript implementations of crypto. The only native cryptography available in browser is Web Crypto, this resulted in us creating a @peculiar/webcrypto.

Table Of Contents

• WARNING
• Installing
• Breaking Changes In v2
• Supported algorithms
• Using
• Examples
• Bug Reporting
• Contributing
• Related

WARNING

At this time this solution should be considered suitable for research and experimentation, further code and security review is needed before utilization in a production application.

Module is based on the Node.js crypto API.

Installing

npm install @peculiar/webcrypto

The package is ESM-only with TypeScript declarations, and requires Node.js ^20.19.0 || >=22.12.0. CommonJS code can still require() it on those versions. webcrypto-core, @peculiar/asn1-schema and @peculiar/json-schema are peer dependencies; npm 7+ installs them automatically.

Breaking Changes In v2

v2 is ESM-only and requires Node.js ^20.19.0 || >=22.12.0 (was >=14.18.0). CommonJS code can still require("@peculiar/webcrypto") on these versions; Node.js 22.0–22.11 can't. The public API is unchanged: Crypto and CryptoKey, with the same algorithms and key import/export behavior.

• TypeScript compiling to CommonJS: use "module": "node20" or "nodenext" (node16 fails with TS1479). ESM and bundler setups need no changes. Consumers don't need experimentalDecorators.
• Jest in CommonJS mode: switch to ESM mode or Vitest, or add @peculiar/webcrypto, webcrypto-core, asn1js and the @peculiar/* packages to transformIgnorePatterns.
• Deep imports (@peculiar/webcrypto/build/...) stay blocked by exports; import from @peculiar/webcrypto. The react-native field is removed.
• Generated type declarations replace the hand-written index.d.ts. Crypto now shows its webcrypto-core base class (for example crypto.subtle.providers); code written against the 1.x types still compiles.
• Peer dependencies: webcrypto-core ^2.0.0, @peculiar/asn1-schema ^3.0.0 and @peculiar/json-schema ^3.0.0. Keys are parsed with classes that webcrypto-core registers in the schema storages of those packages, and CryptoKey is webcrypto-core's class, so an app needs exactly one copy of each; a conflicting major now fails at install (ERESOLVE) instead of at runtime. @peculiar/utils moves from 2 to 4.

Supported algorithms

Algorithm name	generateKey	digest	export/import	sign/verify	encrypt/decrypt	wrapKey/unwrapKey	derive
SHA-1		X
SHA-256		X
SHA-384		X
SHA-512		X
HMAC	X		X	X
RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5	X		X	X
RSAES-PKCS1-v1_52	X		X		X	X
RSA-PSS	X		X	X
RSA-OAEP	X		X		X	X
AES-CMAC	X		X	X
AES-CBC	X		X		X	X
AES-CTR	X		X		X	X
AES-ECB	X		X		X	X
AES-GCM	X		X		X	X
AES-KW	X		X			X
ECDSA1	X		X	X
ECDH1	X		X				X
EdDSA2,3	X		X	X
ECDH-ES2,4	X		X				X
HKDF			X				X
PBKDF2			X				X
DES-CBC2	X		X		X	X
DES-EDE3-CBC2	X		X		X	X
shake1282		X
shake2562		X

¹ Mechanism supports extended list of named curves P-256, P-384, P-521, K-256, brainpoolP160r1, brainpoolP160t1, brainpoolP192r1, brainpoolP192t1, brainpoolP224r1, brainpoolP224t1, brainpoolP256r1, brainpoolP256t1, brainpoolP320r1, brainpoolP320t1, brainpoolP384r1, brainpoolP384t1, brainpoolP512r1, and brainpoolP512t1

² Mechanism is not defined by the WebCrypto specifications. Use of mechanism in a safe way is hard, it was added for the purpose of enabling interoperability with an existing system. We recommend against its use unless needed for interoperability.

³ Mechanism supports extended list of named curves Ed25519, and Ed448

⁴ Mechanism supports extended list of named curves X25519, and X448

Using

import { Crypto } from "@peculiar/webcrypto";
// CommonJS: const { Crypto } = require("@peculiar/webcrypto");

const crypto = new Crypto();

Examples

See WebCrypto Docs for examples

Bug Reporting

Please report bugs either as pull requests or as issues in the issue tracker. @peculiar/webcrypto has a full disclosure vulnerability policy. Please do NOT attempt to report any security vulnerability in this code privately to anybody.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the development setup, checks and release process.

Related

• node-webcrypto-ossl
• node-webcrypto-p11
• webcrypto-liner