Start up React Project

Run the command below to make a new React project:

npm create vite@latest

Give the project a name and select the React framework. Then cd into the project and install pinata.

npm i pinata

After making the project, create a .env.local file in the root of the project and put in the following variables:

VITE_PINATA_JWT=
VITE_GATEWAY_URL=

Use the JWT from the API key creation in the previous step as well as the Gateway Domain. The format of the Gateway domain should be mydomain.mypinata.cloud.

Setup Pinata

Create a directory called utils in the src folder of the project and then make a file called config.ts inside of it. In that file we’ll export an instance of the Files SDK that we can use throughout the rest of the app.

src/utils/config.ts
import { PinataSDK } from "pinata"

export const pinata = new PinataSDK({
  pinataJwt: `${import.meta.env.VITE_PINATA_JWT}`,
  pinataGateway: `${import.meta.env.VITE_GATEWAY_URL}`
})

Create Upload Form

Next we’ll want to make an upload form on the client side that will allow someone to select a file and upload it.

In the src/App.tsx file take out the boiler plate code and use the following. Switch between tabs if you want to see how you would handle folder uploads.

Uploading files like this will expose your API keys!

Retrieve Content

After we have uploaded the file and get the CID back we can create a signed URL for the file to either download it or render it in our app. For this example we will assume the file is an image, but Pinata supports any kind of file type.

We can do this by adding the following code to our App.tsx file.

src/App.tsx
import { useState } from "react";
import { pinata } from "./utils/config"

function App() {
  const [selectedFile, setSelectedFile]: any = useState();
  const [url, setUrl]: any = useState();

  const changeHandler = (event: any) => {
    setSelectedFile(event.target.files[0]);
  };

  const handleSubmission = async () => {
    try {
      const upload = await pinata.upload.file(selectedFile)
      console.log(upload);

      const signedUrl = await pinata.gateways.createSignedURL({
          cid: upload.cid,
          expires: 30
      })
      setUrl(signedUrl)
    } catch (error) {
      console.log(error);
    }
  };

  return (
    <>
      <label className="form-label"> Choose File</label>
      <input
        type="file"
        onChange={changeHandler}
      />
      <button onClick={handleSubmission}>Submit</button>
      {url && (
        <img
          src={url}
          alt="uploaded image"
        />
      )}
    </>
  );
}

export default App;