@lukeed/csprng

This package is essentially a tiny wrapper that normalizes crypto.randomBytes across Node.js and browser environments. In production, it's been completely transparent - you call it, get your random bytes, and move on. Zero configuration needed, no connection pooling or resource management concerns since it's just aliasing native crypto APIs. The entire source is about 20 lines, which means predictable behavior and no surprises.

From an operations perspective, error handling passes through directly from the underlying platform APIs. In Node.js you get standard crypto module errors, in browsers you get Web Crypto API exceptions. There are no retry mechanisms or custom error wrapping, which is actually appropriate for a CSPRNG - if the platform can't generate random bytes, you want to know immediately. Memory footprint is negligible since it's stateless.

The main value proposition is cross-platform consistency without pulling in polyfills or larger dependencies. For services that need cryptographically secure random values in both Node and browser contexts, this eliminates conditional imports. Performance is native speed since there's no overhead beyond a function call.

This package does exactly one thing: provides a unified interface for cryptographically secure random bytes across Node.js and browsers. The API is literally just `csprng(length)` which returns a Buffer/Uint8Array with random bytes. If you've ever used `crypto.randomBytes()`, you already know how to use this - there's essentially no learning curve.

The main value proposition is abstracting away the platform differences between Node's `crypto.randomBytes` and the browser's `crypto.getRandomValues`. The package is tiny (under 300 bytes), has no dependencies, and just works. Error handling is straightforward - if you pass invalid input, you get clear type errors. The documentation is minimal but sufficient since the API surface is so small.

One minor friction point is the lack of async support - it only provides synchronous random byte generation. For most use cases this is fine, but if you need `randomBytes().promise()` behavior in Node, you'll need to wrap it yourself or use the native APIs directly. Otherwise, it's a solid, no-frills utility that delivers on its promise.

In practice, @lukeed/csprng does exactly what it promises: provides a unified interface to cryptographically secure random number generation across Node.js and browsers. It's essentially a tiny wrapper (~100 bytes) that delegates to crypto.randomBytes in Node or crypto.getRandomValues in browsers. I've used it in authentication token generation and session ID creation without issues.

The API is dead simple - just call csprng(length) and you get a Buffer/Uint8Array with cryptographically secure random bytes. Error handling is transparent, passing through whatever the underlying crypto API throws. The package correctly uses platform-native CSPRNGs rather than implementing its own, which is the right security decision.

The main gotcha is that it returns different types depending on environment (Buffer in Node, Uint8Array in browsers), so you need to handle that in your code if you're doing cross-platform work. Also, there's minimal input validation - passing negative numbers or non-integers will fail ungracefully. For security-critical applications, you'll want to wrap it with your own validation layer.