lightning-invoice -- Command for accepting payments =================================================== SYNOPSIS -------- **invoice** *msatoshi* *label* *description* \[*expiry*\] \[*fallbacks*\] \[*preimage*\] \[*exposeprivatechannels*\] DESCRIPTION ----------- The **invoice** RPC command creates the expectation of a payment of a given amount of milli-satoshi: it returns a unique token which another lightning daemon can use to pay this invoice. This token includes a *route hint* description of an incoming channel with capacity to pay the invoice, if any exists. The *msatoshi* parameter can be the string "any", which creates an invoice that can be paid with any amount. Otherwise it is a positive value in millisatoshi precision; it can be a whole number, or a whole number ending in *msat* or *sat*, or a number with three decimal places ending in *sat*, or a number with 1 to 11 decimal places ending in *btc*. The *label* must be a unique string or number (which is treated as a string, so "01" is different from "1"); it is never revealed to other nodes on the lightning network, but it can be used to query the status of this invoice. The *description* is a short description of purpose of payment, e.g. *1 cup of coffee*. This value is encoded into the BOLT11 invoice and is viewable by any node you send this invoice to. It must be UTF-8, and cannot use *\\u* JSON escape codes. The *expiry* is optionally the time the invoice is valid for; without a suffix it is interpreted as seconds, otherwise suffixes *s*, *m*, *h*, *d*, *w* indicate seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks respectively. If no value is provided the default of 604800 (1w) is used. The *fallbacks* array is one or more fallback addresses to include in the invoice (in order from most-preferred to least): note that these arrays are not currently tracked to fulfill the invoice. The *preimage* is a 64-digit hex string to be used as payment preimage for the created invoice. By default, if unspecified, lightningd will generate a secure pseudorandom preimage seeded from an appropriate entropy source on your system. **IMPORTANT**: if you specify the *preimage*, you are responsible, to ensure appropriate care for generating using a secure pseudorandom generator seeded with sufficient entropy, and keeping the preimage secret. This parameter is an advanced feature intended for use with cutting-edge cryptographic protocols and should not be used unless explicitly needed. If specified, *exposeprivatechannels* overrides the default route hint logic, which will use unpublished channels only if there are no published channels. If *true* unpublished channels are always considered as a route hint candidate; if *false*, never. If it is a short channel id (e.g. *1x1x3*) or array of short channel ids, only those specific channels will be considered candidates, even if they are public or dead-ends. The route hint is selected from the set of incoming channels of which: peer’s balance minus their reserves is at least *msatoshi*, state is normal, the peer is connected and not a dead end (i.e. has at least one other public channel). The selection uses some randomness to prevent probing, but favors channels that become more balanced after the payment. RETURN VALUE ------------ On success, a hash is returned as *payment\_hash* to be given to the payer, and the *expiry\_time* as a UNIX timestamp. It also returns a BOLT11 invoice as *bolt11* to be given to the payer. On failure, an error is returned and no invoice is created. If the lightning process fails before responding, the caller should use lightning-listinvoice(7) to query whether this invoice was created or not. The following error codes may occur: - -1: Catchall nonspecific error. - 900: An invoice with the given *label* already exists. - 901: An invoice with the given *preimage* already exists. - 902: None of the specified *exposeprivatechannels* were usable. One of the following warnings may occur (on success): - *warning\_offline* if no channel with a currently connected peer has the incoming capacity to pay this invoice - *warning\_capacity* if there is no channel that has sufficient incoming capacity - *warning\_deadends* if there is no channel that is not a dead-end AUTHOR ------ Rusty Russell <> is mainly responsible. SEE ALSO -------- lightning-listinvoice(7), lightning-delinvoice(7), lightning-getroute(7), lightning-sendpay(7). RESOURCES --------- Main web site: