Installation

This page walks you through adding chapa-nodejs to your project and creating a configured Chapa instance ready to make API calls.

Prerequisites

You need Node.js installed and a Chapa account with a secret key. You can get your secret key from the Chapa dashboard.

Install the package

Install with npm:

npm install -s chapa-nodejs

Or with Yarn:

yarn add chapa-nodejs

Create a Chapa instance

Import Chapa from the package and instantiate it with your secret key. Every SDK method is called on this instance.

import { Chapa } from 'chapa-nodejs';

const chapa = new Chapa({
  secretKey: 'your-chapa-secret-key',
});

Note: Keep your secret key out of version control. Store it in an environment variable or a secrets manager and pass it in at runtime.

Verify the setup

Call getBanks() — it requires no arguments and returns immediately if your key is valid. It's the lightest possible check.

const banks = await chapa.getBanks();
console.log(banks.data); // array of supported banks

If you see a populated array, your credentials are working and you're ready to initialize transactions. Head to Quickstart for the full first-payment workflow.