Protocols & Tools

The Pathfinder RPC is a Go service built with ConnectRPC, which means a single server serves the same API over three wire protocols on the same port. Pick whichever fits your stack - there's no functional difference in what you can call.

The three protocolsCopy Anchor Link

• gRPC - the "native" protocol. Needs a gRPC client and generated code; not directly reachable from a browser.
• gRPC-Web - a browser-compatible variant of gRPC, used by gRPC-Web client libraries.
• Connect - the easiest option to start with. It's a normal-looking HTTP API: you can curl it or fetch() it directly with plain JSON, no code generation required, and it also accepts binary protobuf on the same endpoints if you want the smaller payload.

Interactive referenceCopy Anchor Link

The API Reference pages have a "try it" panel (powered by Scalar) for every unary method, built from the same OpenAPI spec that documents the Connect JSON+HTTP surface. It's the fastest way to explore request/response shapes without leaving the browser. It can't represent FindPathStreaming (see v2beta) since that's a bidirectional stream, not a request/response call - Scalar's playground is built around one-shot HTTP requests.

CLI and GUI toolsCopy Anchor Link

• grpcurl - a command-line gRPC client, good for quick ad-hoc calls once you know a method's name:

  Copy Text

  grpcurl -d '{"chain_id": "juno-1"}' pathfinder.thespectra.io pathfinder.v2beta.PathfinderQueryService/GetChainInfo
  grpcurl pathfinder.thespectra.io list

• grpcui - a local web UI over gRPC reflection, useful if you'd rather click through forms than write JSON by hand:

  Copy Text

  grpcui pathfinder.thespectra.io

• Buf Studio - a hosted, browser-based client for calling live gRPC/Connect/gRPC-Web APIs, without installing anything locally. Since raw gRPC can't run in a browser, Studio talks to your server through the Buf Studio Agent (bundled in the buf CLI) as a bridge, and needs either a schema published to the Buf Schema Registry or manually-provided proto descriptors. Spectra doesn't currently publish Pathfinder's schema to the BSR, so using Studio today means supplying descriptors yourself - for zero-setup testing, the Connect-over-HTTP examples in the Querying Guide or the interactive API Reference are the faster path.

Generating a typed clientCopy Anchor Link

If you want type-safe request/response objects instead of hand-written JSON, generate a client from the proto files with buf:

version: v2
plugins:
  - local: protoc-gen-es
    out: ./src/lib/generated
    opt: target=ts
    include_imports: true
  - local: protoc-gen-connect-es
    out: ./src/lib/generated
    opt: target=ts
inputs:
  - git_repo: https://github.com/Cogwheel-Validator/spectra-portal
    branch: main
    subdir: proto

Both plugins are required - protoc-gen-es generates the message types, protoc-gen-connect-es generates the service client object that createClient() needs. See the Querying Guide for what to do with the generated code, and the spectra-ibc-hub repo's own proto/buf.gen.yaml for the canonical, always-current version of this config.