Overview

Lighter provider instances, SDK-owned signing, setup, and configuration

This section covers behavior shared by the Lighter deployments exposed through the perps SDK. For general concepts, see Action Pattern.

Lighter signs actions with a per-account native keypair registered on-chain through REGISTER_API_KEY. Public provider metadata calls this an SDK signer: the Lighter plugin owns key generation, persistence, WASM loading, signing, and read-only token lifecycle. Applications do not instantiate a signer or pass a key store separately.

Provider instances

Provider key	Deployment	Settlement/deposit chain	Collateral	REST / WebSocket
lighter	Lighter mainnet	Ethereum deposit bridge; Lighter settlement chain	USDC	Mainnet Lighter endpoints
lighter-rh	Lighter on Robinhood Chain	Robinhood Chain	USDG	Robinhood Lighter endpoints

Both providers expose the same normalized SDK contract but keep endpoints, caches, credentials, signing configuration, and asset registries isolated.

import { createPerpsClient, PerpsWsClient } from '@lifi/perps-sdk';
import {
  lighterProvider,
  lighterRhProvider,
  LIGHTER_RH_REST_URL,
  lighterWsProvider,
} from '@lifi/perps-sdk-provider-lighter';

const sdk = createPerpsClient({
  integrator: 'my-app',
  providers: [lighterProvider(), lighterRhProvider()],
});

const ws = new PerpsWsClient(sdk, {
  wsProviders: {
    lighter: lighterWsProvider(),
    'lighter-rh': lighterWsProvider({ restUrl: LIGHTER_RH_REST_URL }),
  },
});

Each provider defaults to encrypted browser localStorage for its signing key and read-only token. Pass storage to a provider factory only for SSR, tests, or a different persistence backend. Authenticated WebSocket channels automatically reuse resolveAuthToken from the co-registered REST provider; a custom resolver is only needed for a standalone WebSocket client.

Topics

• Signing Model — WASM signing, the native key versus the L1 wallet, and dual-authorized setup
• Deposits — provider-owned deposit discovery for Lighter mainnet and Robinhood Chain
• Setup — registering the trading key and satisfying conditional gates
• Trading — trading and account actions
• Withdrawals — per-asset/per-route balance discovery and settlement paths
• WebSocket Protocol — channel mapping and provider-owned authentication

Defaults and constraints

• Default margin mode: CROSS when marginMode is omitted from placeOrder or updateLeverage.
• Trade signing: actions are authorized by the plugin’s SDK signer with no per-trade wallet popup.
• Order fields: price is required.
• Withdrawal destination: the account owner address only.
• Mainnet deposit: Ethereum mainnet USDC plus ETH for gas.
• Robinhood deposit: Robinhood Chain USDG plus native gas.
• Key slot: slot 42 by default; re-registering the same slot replaces the prior key.

Related pages

• SDK / Providers — provider discovery and deposit-flow descriptors
• SDK / Withdrawal — withdrawable-balance discovery and submission
• SDK / Streaming — normalized WebSocket subscriptions
• SDK / Actions — authorization-step variants