Yivi App

Authentication made easy, privacy-friendly, and secure

Yivi, formerly known as IRMA, offers a privacy-friendly, flexible and secure solution to many authentication problems, putting the user in full control over his/her data.

The Yivi app manages the user's cards containing personal data. It can receive new cards, selectively disclose data contained in the user's cards to others, and attaching data to signed statements. These data can be relevant properties, such as: "I am over 18", "my name is ..." and "I am entitled to access ....". They are only stored on the user's device and nowhere else.

NOTE: During the transition period in which we change IRMA to Yivi, it can happen that both names are used interchangeably.

       

Repository layout

The repository is organized as three Flutter packages plus a Go bridge:

• yivi_core — shared business logic, the Dart bindings for irmagobridge, and the Go bridge build outputs (android/irmagobridge/irmagobridge.aar and ios/Irmagobridge.xcframework).
• yivi_app — the main Play Store / App Store application. Integration tests live here under integration_test/.
• yivi_fdroid — the F-Droid build variant of the app.
• irmagobridge/ and the irma_configuration submodule sit at the repository root.

Most commands below should be run from one of these subdirectories. The just recipes take care of cd-ing into the right place for you.

Development setup

• Clone the project

  git clone --recursive git@github.com:privacybydesign/irmamobile.git
  

• If you forgot to include --recursive in your git clone, make sure to init and update the submodules:

  cd irmamobile
  git submodule init
  git submodule update
  

• Install Java development kit. We recommend to use Java 17.

  # On Debian / Ubuntu
  apt install openjdk-17-jdk
  
  # On MacOS
  brew install openjdk@17
  flutter config --jdk-dir /opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk@17/libexec/openjdk.jdk/Contents/Home
  

• Install the Android SDK tools by going to the Android developer download page. The app currently targets compileSdk 36 and minSdk 26, so make sure to install matching build-tools and platforms. In addition to the SDK platform, the following SDK tools need to be installed:

  • Android SDK Command-line Tools
  • Android SDK Build-Tools
  • Android SDK Platform-Tools
  • NDK
  • CMake

  If you're using the SDK Manager of Android Studio: you can find specific versions for Build-Tools by enabling the option Show Package Details.

• Update your environment. You installed the Android SDK in the previous step, but you will still need to update your PATH to make sure you can access the utilities provided and to make sure that flutter keeps working, you will need to export an ANDROID_HOME environment variable:

  echo 'export ANDROID_HOME="/YOUR/PATH/TO/android-sdk"' >> "$HOME/.bashrc"
  echo 'export PATH="$ANDROID_HOME/tools:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools:$PATH"' >> "$HOME/.bashrc"
  

• Download Flutter from the download page and follow their installation steps. Make sure to update your $PATH again.

• Run flutter doctor to see what steps remain to get a fully operational development environment for flutter (this may include accepting the android licenses). At this point you could also download your development environment.

• Install Go from the Go download page or by using your OS package manager.

• Run go install golang.org/x/mobile/cmd/gomobile to install gomobile.

• Run gomobile init to initialize gomobile. (Alternatively, run ./ci_scripts/install_gomobile.sh which installs the version pinned in yivi_core/go.mod and runs gomobile init for you.)

• Create the irmagobridge: ./bind_go.sh. The script accepts an optional argument to limit which targets are built — useful during local development:

  ./bind_go.sh                 # build all platforms (Android + iOS)
  ./bind_go.sh android         # build all Android ABIs
  ./bind_go.sh ios             # build iOS only
  ./bind_go.sh android/arm64   # build a single Android ABI (fastest)
  

• Start an emulator or connect a device via USB and run the flutter project from the yivi_app directory: flutter run (iOS) or flutter run --flavor alpha (Android). You can also use just run from the repository root, or run the project via Android Studio or Visual Studio Code. The alpha flavor on Android does not open universal links. If you need to test these, you need to build the beta flavor (flutter run --flavor beta). In order to install a beta flavor build, you need to uninstall the Play Store version of the Yivi app. Therefore, it is practical to only do this in a simulator or a dedicated test device. In case you run the flutter project via Android Studio, you can specify the build flavor in the run configuration. On iOS, no custom flavor should be specified.

• You can use flutter run -t to run different app configurations, for example run flutter run -t lib/main_prototypes.dart (from yivi_app) to start the app in the prototypes menu.

• On Android emulators, App Links do not work by default, as they are verified against the signature in the assetlinks.json on https://open.yivi.app, which does not match on custom builds. In order to make this work on emulators, you need to run the app using flutter run once, then close the app and go to System settings. In the Apps section, find the Yivi app and go to Open by default. In this screen, you will see 0 verified links. Click Add link and select all available links (for now, open.yivi.app and irma.app). Also, make sure In the app is selected to open these domains in the app, rather than a browser.

Using just

Most important things inside of this project can be controlled using just. To see an overview of all available commands and what they do, run:

  just --list

You can then use them from anywhere in the project. For example to run the Flutter app you can type:

  just run

JSON serialization code

This project uses json_serializer. To re-generate serialization code, run ./codegen.sh (or just gen). The generator runs against yivi_core; the script additionally formats the Dart sources in each package.

Integration tests

The integration tests are in development, so not all use cases are covered yet.

As preliminary to run the integration tests, you need a fully configured irmamobile development setup.

The tests are located in the yivi_app directory, so cd into that before continuing.

Run locally using an iOS/Android simulator

The full set of integration tests can be started in the following way:

  # For an iOS testing device/simulator
  flutter test integration_test/test_all.dart
  # For an Android testing device/simulator
  flutter test integration_test/test_all.dart --flavor=alpha

You can also run the integration tests in a specific test file only. For example:

  flutter test integration_test/issuance_test.dart

Note: flutter test also supports directory paths as argument. When doing this, all tests in that particular directory are run. However, a new build is made for every test file. Running multiple tests in this way takes much more time for that reason.

Run on Android natively

To natively run the integration tests on Android, you can use the command below.

  flutter pub get
  (cd android && ./gradlew app:connectedAlphaDebugAndroidTest -Ptarget=`pwd`/../integration_test/test_all.dart)

You can also manually build APKs for testing using Fastlane.

  bundle exec fastlane android_build_integration_test

The APKs can be found in ./fastlane/build. They can be uploaded to services like Google Firebase. You can also run them locally using the following commands:

  adb install ./fastlane/build/app-alpha-debug.apk
  adb install ./fastlane/build/app-alpha-debug-androidTest.apk
  adb shell am instrument -w -r foundation.privacybydesign.irmamobile.alpha.test/androidx.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner

Run on iOS natively

To natively run the integration tests as XCTests on iOS, you can do this using XCode.

At first, you need to choose which test you want to run. For example, to run the tests in issuance_test.dart you execute:

  flutter build ios integration_test/issuance_test.dart --config-only

The tests can be started by opening the ios/Runner.xcworkspace in XCode and then start the tests via Product > Test.

You can use testing services like Google Firebase to easily run your tests on physical devices. The testing service of your choice needs to support XCTest (not to be confused with XCUITest). You can make a build for this purpose using Fastlane:

  bundle exec fastlane ios_build_integration_test

The integration test build should be provisioned with at least a development provisioning profile. More information about how to set the provisioning profile can be found in the Fastlane documentation.

The generated ./fastlane/build/ios_tests.zip can be uploaded to Google Firebase.

Fastlane

For build automation we use Fastlane scripting. These scripts are used by our CI tooling (i.e. the GitHub Actions workflows in .github/workflows). Documentation about the Fastlane scripting can be found here.

Troubleshooting

• Have you checked out the two submodules of this repository? If find ./irma_configuration is empty, this is the case.
• If something has changed in the irmagobridge or in irmago then rerunning ./bind_go.sh is required.
• In case you get the warning that the ndk-bundle cannot be found, please set the ANDROID_NDK_HOME environment variable to the right ndk version directory. These version directories can be found in $ANDROID_HOME/ndk. For example, you have to specify export ANDROID_NDK_HOME=$ANDROID_HOME/ndk/<NDK_VERSION>. You can also make a symlink in ANDROID_HOME by doing ln -s $ANDROID_HOME/ndk/<NDK_VERSION> $ANDROID_HOME/ndk-bundle. In here <NDK_VERSION> should be replaced with the NDK version you want to use.
• When you get an error related to x_cgo_inittls while running ./bind_go.sh, you probably use an incorrect version of the Android NDK or your Go version is too old.
• When the flutter tool cannot find the generated apk after building for Android, the flavor is probably omitted. You need to run flutter run --flavor alpha or flutter run --flavor beta.
• When you are working with Windows, you need to manually make a symlink between the configuration folders. You can do this by opening a terminal as administrator and use the following command: mklink /d .\android\app\src\main\assets\irma_configuration .\irma_configuration.
• When Java jdk version is not compatible: set the jdk version flutter uses with flutter config --jdk-dir <jdk_dir>. Version 17 is recommended for this app (don't try to fiddle with gradle versions).
• When you are building for iOS using XCode and you get Dart Error: Can't load Kernel binary: Invalid kernel binary format version., then likely your Flutter cache is corrupted. You can empty and reload the Flutter cache in the following way:

pushd $(which flutter)/../
rm -rf ./cache
flutter doctor
flutter precache --ios
popd
cd yivi_app
flutter pub get
cd ./ios && pod install

Edit irmago directly

Sometimes it can be useful to directly edit irmago while debugging (do this in the yivi_core directory).

go mod edit -replace github.com/privacybydesign/irmago=<irmago_path_on_your_pc>
go mod tidy
./bind_go.sh

After each change in the Go code, you need to rerun ./bind_go.sh to compile the changes. Make sure to never commit the changes in go.mod or go.sum in this (irmamobile) repository.