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LND

Welcome to the API reference documentation for LND, the Lightning Network Daemon.

The Lightning Network Daemon (lnd) - is a complete implementation of a Lightning Network node. lnd has several pluggable back-end chain services including btcd (a full-node), bitcoind, and neutrino (a new experimental light client). The project's codebase uses the btcsuite set of Bitcoin libraries, and also exports a large set of isolated re-usable Lightning Network related libraries within it. In the current state lnd is capable of:

  • Creating channels.
  • Closing channels.
  • Completely managing all channel states (including the exceptional ones!).
  • Maintaining a fully authenticated+validated channel graph.
  • Performing path finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments.
  • Sending outgoing onion-encrypted payments through the network.
  • Updating advertised fee schedules.
  • Automatic channel management (autopilot).

Usage​

Learn how to install, configure, and use LND by viewing the documentation in the Builder's Guide.

Summary​

This site features the API documentation for lncli (CLI), Python, and JavaScript in order to communicate with a local lnd instance through gRPC and REST. It is intended for those who already understand how to work with LND. If this is your first time or you need a refresher, you may consider perusing our LND developer site featuring a tutorial, resources and guides at dev.lightning.community.

gRPC​

The code samples assume that the there is a local lnd instance running and listening for gRPC connections on port 10009. LND_DIR will be used as a placeholder to denote the base directory of the lnd instance. By default, this is ~/.lnd on Linux and ~/Library/Application Support/Lnd on macOS.

At the time of writing this documentation, two things are needed in order to make a gRPC request to an lnd instance: a TLS/SSL connection and a macaroon used for RPC authentication. The code samples will show how these can be used in order to make a successful, secure, and authenticated gRPC request.

The original *.proto files from which the gRPC documentation was generated can be found here:

REST​

View a listing of all REST URLs on the REST Endpoints page.

The code samples assume that the there is a local lnd instance running and listening for REST connections on port 8080. LND_DIR will be used as a placeholder to denote the base directory of the lnd instance. By default, this is ~/.lnd on Linux and ~/Library/Application Support/Lnd on macOS.

At the time of writing this documentation, two things are needed in order to make an HTTP request to an lnd instance: a TLS/SSL connection and a macaroon used for RPC authentication. The code samples will show how these can be used in order to make a successful, secure, and authenticated HTTP request.

The original *.swagger.json files from which the gRPC documentation was generated can be found here:

REST Encoding​

NOTE: The byte field type must be set as the base64 encoded string representation of a raw byte array. Also, any time this must be used in a URL path (ie. /v1/abc/xyz/{payment_hash}) the base64 string must be encoded using a URL and Filename Safe Alphabet. This means you must replace + with -, / with _, and keep the trailing = as is. Url encoding (ie. %2F) will not work.

This documentation was generated automatically against commit bd36f765304f736391b752199aa9281b2e2ca5a7.

Experimental services​

The following RPCs/services are currently considered to be experimental. This means they are subject to change in the future. They also need to be enabled with a compile-time flag to be active (they are active in the official release binaries).