What is Fission?

Fission powers next generation app publishing.

For developers, they can design a user app using only front end and design skills. The web native app can be installed by 10 or 10,000 users, just like mobile or desktop software. Because the app is running on the user's computer, you can focus on finding new users and adding new features, rather than having to learn DevOps or server scaling.

People using apps create a secure identity in their browsers. Every Fission account is linked to a file system, available in any browser. Much like an open source iCloud, users give permissions to apps, and can access their files from anywhere. Users can browse their file system, both public and private, and mix and match which apps they use, just like they're used to with mobile and desktop apps.

Developers

Get started by installing the Fission CLI »

Users

Learn more about Fission Accounts, and try one out by installing the Drive app »

Fission users can recover a lost account with a Recovery Kit. You can create a Recovery Kit in the Fission Dashboard to ensure you will always have access to your account.

Make a Recovery Kit

Sign in to the Fission Dashboard and select Recovery Kit.

To create a Recovery Kit, you need to grant the Fission Dashboard access to your private files. This step is necessary for the Dashboard to recover your private files.

Allow creating a recovery kit and grant permission in the Fission Auth Lobby.

After granting permission, you can create a Recovery Kit.

The recovery kit should be stored somewhere safe. Anyone with access to your Recovery Kit can access your private files. If you lose your Recovery Kit, you will not be able to recover your account.

Download your Recovery Kit and save it somewhere safe.

We recommend you store it on a device or storage medium that you will not easily lose.

Recover your Account

If you have lost access to your account, you can recover it with a Recovery Kit from the Fission Dashboard.

Select the Recover your account option below the sign in button.

You will need your Recovery Kit and access to the email you used to create the account.

Drag your recovery kit onto the upload box or click the box to select it from your file system. Fission Dashboard will import your recovery kit.

After Fission Dashboard imports your Recovery Kit, select send email.

Fission will send you verification email. Click on the link in the email and the recovery page will give you an option to recover your account.

Select recover account and re-link your account by signing into the Fission Auth Lobby.

Make sure to keep the recovery page open while you re-link your account.

The Fission Auth Lobby and account recovery page will show you confirmation codes.

When you are satisfied that the codes match, confirm in the account recovery page.

After confirming, Fission will recover your account, and you can access your files again.

Your Recovery Kit will work again if you need to recover your account in the future.

All of the apps that you have published with your account are listed on the Apps page.

Create a new app from the Dashboard

As well as using the Fission CLI to register and publish apps, you can drag and drop a folder of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files to create and publish your app directly from the browser.

Manage apps you've created

When you click on an app in your apps list, you get to a page you can update, rename or delete your apps on.

When you create a Fission Account, whether signing up on the web or using the command line as a developer, it creates a username and email address in our service database, and also a private / public key pair representing that account.

We also create a Fission Web Native File System (WNFS) attached to your account, and given you access to Fission Drive, which lets you browse all your files, access them from any browser, and see which apps are attached to your file system.

We verify your email address, and can use that to help manage aspects of your service with us. You hold access to the keys connected to your account, and sign in happens automatically.

We encourage you to "link" your account to multiple devices -- your desktop and your phone, your home and your work computers, and so on. These devices can then be used to login, or link more accounts. You can read more about Account Linking »

Signing out of Fission Apps

There is no "sign out" for a Fission-powered app. You use your key to do a passwordless login, stored in your local desktop browser, mobile web browser, or your local desktop file system with the command line developer tool.

While your device is linked with a key, Fission apps will check that you have a key with the proper permission, and will just let you right in, without having to remember a password or even a username.

This is like your smartphone: only a single user is "logged in" to their personal phone, and they aren't shared.

We don't delete the data that the app stored for you, since it's stored in your own Fission File System -- just like data is stored on your phone.

App Permissions

As part of signing into an app, an app will ask for certain permissions. Right now, these are mostly related to access to your file system.

By default, every app needs access to an App Folder. You'll need to at least grant access to an App Folder for the app to function correctly.

Revoking App Access

Instead of signing out, you may want to revoke -- or delete -- an app's access to your account.

Shared Devices

Browsers and desktop computers aren't smartphones, and they do get shared. You can unlink a device -- remove your key -- by visiting the Fission Auth page.

Multiple Accounts per Device

You may create multiple Fission accounts, but you'll need a unique email address and username for each one. You'll also need to use Browser Profiles to be able to access them at the same time on the same machine, as the keys that grant access are stored in the browser.

Web Linking

To have access to your account across multiple devices, you need to link them.

When you visit an app on a new device and Sign in with Fission, or if you go directly to the Fission Auth page, you'll be prompted to either create a new account or link an existing one:

If you have an account already, click the sign in button:

The only thing you need to know is your username. Enter it, and hit the link account button:

As you can see, you are now being asked to open the Fission Auth page on your other device. This might be your other computer or perhaps your phone. There is also a short message telling us that this is for the boris0902 username.

Once you open the Fission Auth page on your other device, it will detect the linking request and display a page like this.

The new device you are linking should show the same numbers:

Since we can see the numbers are the same, we can go ahead and hit the "Approve" button, and you'll see this success message.

Switching to the new device you were linking, you'll see this message:

Now you can use either device with full authorization

And yes, this works on mobile too:

Command Line Linking

The Linking an existing user guide has details on linking accounts used at the command line.

shows the verification status of your account. You can resend your verification email if it ended up in your spam.

Like all Fission apps -- including the ones made by Fission directly -- you need to give permission to the Dashboard app to access your account info.

Setup

With fission installed, we are ready to set it up on your local machine. If this is your first time using fission, you will be prompted for a username and an email to confirm your new account.

$ fission setup
🌱 Setting up environment
🪐 Downloading managed IPFS for Linux
🎛️  Configuring managed IPFS
generating ED25519 keypair...done
peer identity: 12D3KooWHZ3C1tDmzUhgi3A6LYmgBxvv1E1obtG7S2ZkYM1MN83
initializing IPFS node at /home/yourname/.config/fission/ipfs
🔑 Creating keys
🏠 Do you have an existing account? [Y/n] n
Username: YOURNAME
Email: yourname@example.com
✅ Registration successful! Head over to your email to confirm your account.
🎛️  Initializing user config file
✅ Done! Welcome to Fission, YOURNAME ✨.                                                                                             

A private key has been generated for your machine and saved in the ~/.config/fission/key/ directory. This key secures your communication with Fission services and works like using an SSH key to connect to GitHub.

Account Linking

If you already have an account created in a web browser, you can link it on your local machine. See the Fission CLI linking guide to link your account.

Create a simple webpage

Let's publish a simple webpage with Fission! We will write a simple webpage, register it as a Fission app, and publish it to the web.

Create a project directory and an index.html file.

mkdir hello-universe
cd hello-universe
touch index.html

Add some content to index.html:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Hello Universe!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>Hello Universe!</h1>
    <p>This is a Fission powered page.</p>
    <p>Assisted by <a href="https://fission.codes">Fission</a>.</p>
  </body>
</html>

Run fission app register command to initialize the webpage as a Fission app. You will be prompted for a build directory.

$ fission app register
👷 Build directory (.):

Press enter to set hello-universe as your build directory, and fission will initialize your app.

✅ App initialized as big-narrow-fuchsia-elf.fission.app
⏯️  Next run fission app publish or fission app publish --watch to sync data
💁 It may take DNS time to propagate this initial setup globally. 
In this case, you can always view your app at 
https://ipfs.runfission.com/ipns/big-narrow-fuchsia-elf.fission.app

Fission will create a fission.yaml file with your app configuration.

ignore: []
url: big-narrow-fuchsia-elf.fission.app
build: .

The url is where your webpage will be on the web after it has been published, build tells the fission which directory to publish, and ignore is a list of files and directories to ignore. See the Fission YAML guide for more details.

Run fission app publish to publish the webpage.

$ fission app publish
🕚🛫 App publish local preflight
✈️  Pushing to remote
🚀 Now live on the network
📝 DNS updated! Check out your site at:
🔗 big-narrow-fuchsia-elf.fission.app

Copy the URL from the last line and paste it into your web browser to view the webpage live on the web. Nice and simple!

Fission will occasionally change how your file system is stored to enable new features, improve performance, and improve security. Some of these changes require a file system migration.

Because Fission has no control over your file system, we cannot migrate your file system for you. To help you with migrations, we've developed a command-line tool that upgrades your file system to the latest version.

When to migrate your file system

If your file system is outdated, you will see a message like this in the Auth Lobby (https://auth.fission.codes):

If you decide that your username and data are not worth keeping, go to https://auth.fission.codes and click the text "remove this device" on the bottom of the page. Keep in mind that you will not be able to access data associated with the account afterward.

After removing a device, you will be able to create a new account. New accounts are always created at the latest file system version.

Running a migration

At the moment, running a migration requires familiarity working with the command line on your machine.

Step 1: Install the Fission CLI

Step 2: Link your web account to your command line

The Webnative File System (WNFS) migration tool will use your linked credentials when migrating your file system.

Step 3: Install NPM following the instructions for your operating system

Step 4: Install wnfs-migration

You can now install the migration CLI tool with npm:

npm install --global wnfs-migration

Step 5: Run wnfs-migration

$ wnfs-migration
Looking up data root for [...]
Data root is bafybei[...]
Loading IPFS...
Connected to local ipfs node, version 0.9.0
Connected to the Fission IPFS Cluster
Looking up your filesystem version (https://[...].files.fission.name/version)
Your filesystem currently is at version 1.0.0
Processing public/.well-known
Processing public/.well-known/exchange
[...]
Processing private/Documents
Finished migration: bafybei[...]
? Are you sure you want to overwrite your filesystem with a migrated version? (Y/n)

At this point, wnfs-migration has migrated a local copy of your WNFS. It will then ask you to confirm that you want to overwrite the synced version of your file system on the Fission servers.

Enter Y to confirm or n to decline and abort the migration process. If you confirm, wnfs-migration will sync your migrated file system:

Created authorization UCAN. Updating data root... # this will take some time
Migration done!
Shutting down IPFS...

Use fission generate credentials to generate key pairs and DIDs.

Generate Credentials

The fission generate credentials command generates a new Ed25519 key pair and an associated DID.

See the for details on the derivation of DIDs from public keys.

Fission Drive is currently a preview release of our upcoming file storage and identity system that lets you take your files anywhere, encrypted end-to-end as well as for public hosting of files, websites, and apps.

The Preview release is an exploration of the interface, and currently supports only public files.

Enter any IPFS Hash

You can browse any IPFS directory, not just those hosted on Fission, by entering in the hash, or Content ID (CID), of a directory.

Features

Dark & Light Mode

Preview supports system wide / browser settings for dark vs. light mode and will switch automatically when you change those settings.

File Previews

Clicking on an image will give you a file preview.

Click on the double arrows in the top right hand corner to embiggen the preview to full screen. Hit the X to close the preview.

The "Open in new tab" link will give you a permanent link for sharing the current file, using the Fission IPFS gateway.

Mobile Support

Yes, this works on mobile!

Keyboard Shortcuts

Use arrow keys to navigate, enter to open preview.

Use fission setup, fission user whoami, and fission login to set up your account, display your username, and link your account in web browser.

Setup a new user

The fission setup command registers your account with Fission or links to your existing Fission account.

When you register a new account, you will be prompted for a username and an email. Fission will send you an email to confirm your account and complete your registration.

The fission setup command will create a global config.yaml file in your ~/.config/fission directory. See the guide for more information about the config.yaml file.

Display user information

Use fission user whoami to display your username.

Linking a web browser

You can link your Fission account in a web browser to interact with Fission-enabled apps. The fission login command sets up the CLI to listen for requests to link your account.

The browser window and command line will display confirmation codes. Verify that the confirmation codes match and grant access at the command line.

The browser window will update to show that you have successfully linked your account.

Linking from a web account

If you are signed into a Fission account in a web browser, you can link your account and use it at the command line.

Use fission setup to create and link a CLI user at your command line.

When prompted, enter Y to confirm you have an account and enter your username from the browser window. The auth lobby and CLI will display a confirmation code.

When you have confirmed that the codes match, approve in the browser, and the CLI will complete the setup process and link your account.

Setup with an existing key

You can set up your machine with an existing account if you have the machine_id.ed25519 key. Use --with-key argument and the path to your key.

Installing the Fission CLI

The Fission command line interface (CLI) is the most common way for developers to interact with Fission services.

macOS with Homebrew

Use the Homebrew recipe to install the CLI on macOS. This taps and installs in one command:

If you have any issues, check that libcrypto1.1 installed and linked on your system.

You can also follow the next section for a manual install on macOS.

Linux and Manual Installation

Head over to our page on Github and download the latest release for your operating system.

Grant execute permissions and move the binary onto to your PATH. For example, on Ubuntu 20.04:

Check that the CLI was installed correctly.

If you have any issues, check that you have libssl1.1 (installed with OpenSSL) and libtinfo5 (or libtinfo6). Most recent Linux distributions will already have these libraries installed.

Clock Configuration

Check that your clock is accurate. Account linking depends on an accurate clock and may fail due to clock drift.

Mismatched clocks between a host system and container or VM may also cause issues.

Upgrading the CLI

Run fission --version to check if you are using an old version of the CLI.

To upgrade the CLI on macOS, brew uninstall and brew untap to reset brew.

Reinstall with brew tap and brew install.