Jaco Greeff
c58835059d
* Docs update, getting started * Typos * Cleanups, linking * Update with additional packages
2.2 KiB
Account derivation
Secret URIs are a way of describing the phrase/seed along with derivation paths. This explains the naming of the default add as addUri(...), it can handle mnemonics, seeds and apply suri derivations on these.
Diving in
As a follow-up on what we have done in the preceding section, we take a dive into expanding our account addition with derivation, in this case we are applying two hard paths, hard followed by derivation -
...
// add the account with hard derivation paths
keyring.addUri(`${mnemonic}//hard//derivation`, 'donotcare', { name: 'testing derive' });
This format is standard across the @polkadot/keyring, @polkadot/ui-keyring as well as Substrate subkey, so it is a Polkadot/Substrate specific way of defining derivation paths.
Understanding paths
To build a suri, you paths, the format is always <mnemonic or seed>[//hard][/soft][///password] and it is passed as-is to the addUri(...) function. the derivation types are -
-
Soft derivation, i.e
/<soft path>- Here a single slash,/, denotes a soft derivation. Please note that any pair with aned25519type does not support soft derivations, these are only applicable tosr25519types. -
Hard derivation, i.e.
//<hard path>- Here two slashes,//, denoted a hard derivation. This is available to bothsr25519anded25519pairs. Underlying it will apply a hashing function on the secret, generating a new secret for the remainder of the derivations. -
Password, i.e.
///<password>- Here three slashed,///, denoted the (optional) password. Unlike hard and soft derivations that can be mixed, only a single password should be specified. The password here applies to the actual uri, not be be confused by the JSON encryption password. It is an additional security layer - if your full mnemonic and all paths do leak without the password, a bad actor would still not be able to generate a compatible secret to access funds without the password.
Retrieving accounts
With a fim grasp on adding accounts, next we will take a look at retrieving account and account subscriptions.