NFID Docs - Auth Protocol

Introduction

When a client wants to authenticate a user, it uses a session key (e.g., Ed25519 or ECDSA) and, through the authentication flow (details below), obtains a delegation chain (opens in a new tab) that allows the session key to sign for the user's main identity.

There are two types of session keys - one for an external application (client delegation) to manage a scoped set of user permissions, and one for the main client (NFID delegation) to give users full administrative control of their identity.

Non-ICP networks, like EVM, only need a provider.

Client Delegations

The delegation chain consists of one delegation, called the client delegation, that delegates from the user identity to the session key. This delegation is created by the NFID Delegator smart contract and signed using a smart contract (canister) signature (opens in a new tab). This delegation is scoped to the client's canisters and has a maximum lifetime of 30 days, with a default of 30 minutes.

NFID Delegation

The NFID client also manages an NFID delegation, delegating from the passkey's public key to a session key managed by this frontend, so that it can interact with its smart contracts without having to invoke the passkey for each signature.

Non-ICP Networks (i.e., EVM chains)

When non-ICP clients want to authenticate a user, it receives a provider, constructed on the frontend by the NFID delegation.

From the Point of View of a Client ICP Application:

The application frontend creates a session key pair (e.g., Ed25519).
It installs a message event handler on its own window.
It loads the URL https://nfid.one/#authorize in an iframe. Let nfidWindow be the Window object returned from this.

In the nfidWindow, the user logs in, and the nfidWindow invokes

window.opener.postMessage(msg, "*")

where msg is

interface NFIDReady {
  kind: "authorize-ready";
}

The client application, after receiving the NFIDReady message, invokes
```
nfidWindow.postMessage(msg, "https://nfid.one")
```
where msg is a value of type
```
interface NFIDAuthRequest {
  kind: "authorize-client";
  sessionPublicKey: Uint8Array;
  maxTimeToLive?: bigint;
  derivationOrigin?: string;
}
```
- the sessionPublicKey contains the public key of the session key pair.
- the maxTimeToLive, if present, indicates the desired time span (in nanoseconds) until the requested delegation should expire.
- the derivationOrigin, if present, indicates an origin that should be used for principal derivation instead of the client origin. Values must match the following regular expression: ^https:\/\/[\w-]+(\.raw)?\.(ic0\.app|icp0\.io)$. NFID will only accept values that are also listed in the HTTP resource https://<canister_id>.ic0.app/.well-known/ii-alternative-origins of the corresponding canister (see Alternative Frontend Origins (opens in a new tab)).
Now the client application window expects a message back, with data event.
If event.origin is not https://nfid.one, ignore this message.

The event.data value is a JS object with the following type:

interface NFIDAuthResponse {
  kind: "authorize-client-success";
  delegations: [{
    delegation: {
      pubkey: Uint8Array;
      expiration: bigint;
      targets?: Principal[];
    };
    signature: Uint8Array;
  }];
  userPublicKey: Uint8Array;
}

where the userPublicKey is the user's Identity and delegations corresponds to the CBOR-encoded delegation chain as used for authentication on the IC (opens in a new tab).

It could also receive a failure message of the following type
```
interface NFIDAuthResponse {
  kind: "authorize-client-failure";
  text: string;
}
```
The client application frontend needs to be able to detect when any of the delegations in the chain has expired and re-authorize the user in that case.

The @nfid/embed is a helpful package for developers to quickly get this set up.

Find more at the source IC reference (opens in a new tab).

Overview Signatures