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Typescript application

After building your Application with the SDK, you need to find a place to run it. At its core, the SDK works as a client for the Wire Backend, with some storage for crypto data and for conversations (a local SQLite database). In practice the application only needs two things:

  • Network access to the public Internet, at least to the Wire backend.
  • Permission to create a storage directory with files holding cryptographic material and App data.

You can take the artifacts built from your Application and run them on any server, on-premise or in the cloud, or Dockerize the Application and do the same. Note that you want one instance of the Application running, and it can/should run indefinitely. At its core the SDK opens a WebSocket connection and tries to keep it online as long as possible (reconnecting automatically with exponential backoff), while reading/writing some local files for statefulness.

Runtime requirements​

  • Node.js v22 (see engines in package.json).

Note: Do not run more than one instance against the same credentials/storage. SQLite and the crypto store are single-writer, and the backend expects one client. Scale by running additional, separate Apps, not replicas of the same one.

Persistent storage​

The SDK manages its own local storage under ./storage, relative to the process working directory:

storage/
├── apps.db
└── cryptography
    ├── <App_ID>
    ├── <App_ID>-shm
    └── <App_ID>-wal

This directory holds cryptographic identity and conversation state, so it must survive restarts. Losing this directory means losing the client's crypto identity — the App will re-register as a fresh device.

Locations​

For example, given that the App does not need HTTPS certificates, DNS, CDN, simpler deployment processes are available.

The simplest setup after writing your code is to package it, or build a small Docker image on top of a node:22 base.

Container platforms / PaaS (Fly.io, Render, Railway, Heroku, etc.) work well. Just make sure you attach a persistent disk for ./storage and that native modules are rebuilt for the platform's architecture.

If you want more control, get a basic VPS (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, StackIt), install Docker, and just run the image there.