Rename core server methods

I’ve come a long way in my understanding of WebAuthn since initially launching SimpleWebAuthn. As an active participant in the WebAuthn working groups I also find myself in a position to influence how others think about WebAuthn, and in what terminology they use when speaking about use of its capabilities.

In an effort to unify on terminology that the working group strives to have others use, I’ve decided to rename methods and types in an effort to make it simpler to understand what’s used when.

APIs - @simplewebauthn/server

Registration

Methods involving the registration of authenticators for a particular user are currently under the “attestation” umbrella. As I’ve come to learn attestation is a property of certain kinds of registration responses (ones containing attestation statements, for example). As such, I aim to perform the following rename of these methods (and implicitly any related types):

• generateAttestationOptions() -> generateRegistrationOptions()
• verifyAttestationResponse() -> verifyRegistrationResponse()

Authentication

“Assertions” come out of authentication ceremonies. I think it’s simpler (heh) to map “authentication” as something a user does when they want to log in, versus trying to remember that “assertion” which sounds like “attestation” is for logging a user in. As such, I plan on performing the following renaming as well (along with any related types):

• generateAssertionOptions() -> generateAuthenticationOptions()
• verifyAssertionResponse() -> verifyAuthenticationResponse()

APIs - @simplewebauthn/browser

There are fewer methods exported out of browser so I’ll just list all the renames here:

• startAttestation() -> startRegistration()
• startAssertion() -> startAuthentication()

Types

Types exported from server and typescript-types will need to be renamed as well for consistency’s sake.

[MasterKale]

This issue has been resolved in v4.0.0! A huge thank you to @JayHelton for your help in making this rename happen! 🙇

[JayHelton]

Ill start tackling this! 🚀