fullnode is an ES6 (javascript) implementation of bitcoin intended to satisfy certain goals:

1. Support ease-of-use by being internally consistent. It should not be necessary to read the source code of a class or function to know how to use it. Once you know how to use part of the library, the other parts should feel natural.

2. Have 100% test coverage, or nearly so, so that the library is known to be reliable. This should include running standard test vectors from bitcoin core.

3. Library objects have an interface suitable for use with a command-line interface or other libraries and tools, in particular having toString, fromString, toJSON, fromJSON, toBuffer, fromBuffer, toHex, fromHex methods. It should be possible to mix fullnode with bitcoinjs-lib or bitcore or even libraries from other languages if developers find that useful.

4. All standard features of the bitcoin protocol are implemented (or will be) and saved in lib/. All BIPs are correctly implemented and, where appropriate, saved as bipxx.js in lib/ (since that is their standard name). In order to allow rapid development, fullnode includes non-standard and experimental features. Any non-standard features (such as colored coins or stealth addresses) are labeled as such in index.js as well as in comments.

5. Expose everything, including dependencies. This makes it possible to develop apps that require fine-grained control over the basics, such as big numbers and points. However, it also means that you can hurt yourself if you misuse these primitives.

6. It is always possible to create a new object without using "new".

7. Compatible with browserify (i.e., using require('fullnode/lib/address') should work both in node.js, and be automatically work in the browser with used in conjunction with browserify).

8. Minimize the use of dependencies so that all code can be easily audited.

9. All instance methods modify the state of the object and return the object, unless there is a good reason to do something different. To access the result of an instance method, you must access the object property(s) that it modifies.

10. Use the features of ES6 (ECMAScript 6, the latest version of javascript) available in the latest stable releases of io.js. fullnode is not intended to work with node.js 0.10 or node.js 0.12. Once the merger of io.js and node.js is completed, we will migrate to use whatever features are available in that new version of node.js (which will probably be what is available in io.js today).

fullnode is still alpha, and has an unstable API. Once the API has been finalized, and the code audited, version 1.0 will be released. It is recommended not to use fullnode for production software until that time.

While fullnode is under heavy development, the API changes frequently, and the documentation is not kept up-to-date. However there is some documentation, and it can be built with groc:

npm install -g groc
groc

In order to support maximum interoperability with other software, fullnode is MIT-licensed. See LICENSE.