charm.js

A tiny, self-contained cryptography library, implementing authenticated encryption and keyed hashing.

Any number of hashing and authenticated encryption operations can be freely chained using a single rolling state. In this mode, each authentication tag authenticates the whole transcript since the beginning of the session.

This is a port to JavaScript (TypeScript). It is fully compatible with the C and Zig versions.

Features

• Authenticated encryption with 128-bit security
• Keyed hashing
• No practical limits on message size and length
• Works in both Node.js and Bun environments
• Supports both ESM and CommonJS module systems
• Full TypeScript support with type definitions
• Zero dependencies
• Comprehensive test coverage

Installation

npm install @jedisct1/charm

Usage

ESM

import { Charm } from "@jedisct1/charm";

// Create a key and nonce
const key = new Uint8Array(Charm.key_length).fill(1);
const nonce = new Uint8Array(Charm.nonce_length).fill(2);

// Create a message
const message = new TextEncoder().encode('Hello from Charm!');

// Initialize the state
const charm = new Charm(key, nonce);

// Encrypt
const tag = charm.encrypt(message);

// Decrypt
const charm2 = new Charm(key, nonce);
charm2.decrypt(message, tag);

// Hash
const hash = charm.hash(message);

CommonJS

const { Charm } = require("@jedisct1/charm");

// Create a key and nonce
const key = new Uint8Array(Charm.key_length).fill(1);
const nonce = new Uint8Array(Charm.nonce_length).fill(2);

// Create a message
const message = new TextEncoder().encode('Hello from Charm!');

// Initialize the state
const charm = new Charm(key, nonce);

// Encrypt
const tag = charm.encrypt(message);

// Decrypt
const charm2 = new Charm(key, nonce);
charm2.decrypt(message, tag);

// Hash
const hash = charm.hash(message);

API

Constructor

new Charm(key: Uint8Array, nonce?: Uint8Array)

• key: A Uint8Array of length Charm.key_length (32 bytes)
• nonce: An optional Uint8Array of length Charm.nonce_length (16 bytes)

Static Properties

• Charm.key_length: 32 (bytes)
• Charm.nonce_length: 16 (bytes)
• Charm.tag_length: 16 (bytes)
• Charm.hash_length: 32 (bytes)

Methods

encrypt(msg: Uint8Array): Uint8Array

Encrypts a message in-place and returns the authentication tag.

decrypt(msg: Uint8Array, expected_tag: Uint8Array): void

Decrypts a message in-place and verifies the authentication tag. Throws an error if verification fails.

hash(msg: Uint8Array): Uint8Array

Computes a keyed hash of the message.

Development

Building

npm run build

This will build both ESM and CommonJS versions of the library.

Testing

npm test

Linting

npm run lint

Security

This implementation provides 128-bit security and has no practical limits on the size and length of messages.

Other implementations

• charm original implementation in C
• zig-charm an implementation of Charm in the Zig language
• go-charm an implementation of Charm in the Go language

License

MIT