> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.qu.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Providers

> Configure and utilize a Provider to interact with Quai Network.

## Overview

**A Provider establishes a connection to the blockchain**, whch can be used to query its current state, simulate execution and send transactions to update the state.

Providers are one of the most fundamental components of interacting with a blockchain application, and there are many ways to connect, such as *over HTTP*, *WebSockets* or *injected providers such as Pelagus*.

## Usage

There are two types of network providers you can connect to:

* **Remote Node Providers**: any remote node that is open to data requests
* **Browser/Injected Providers**: typically wallet interfaces used in browser Applications

### Remote Node Provider

To connect to a remote node provider, use the [JsonRpcProvider](/sdk/content/classes/JsonRpcProvider) or [WebSocketProvider](/sdk/content/classes/WebSocketProvider) classes. This connects to a remote node using the JSON-RPC interface. **Remote node providers will never have a signer bundled into them**.

Quais providers are configured to first ask the node which shards it is currently running, and then establish a connection to each of those chains. This is done using

* Via [reverse proxy pathing](https://github.com/dominant-strategies/quai-nginx)
  * Available using the Colosseum RPC endpoint with `https` and `wss`

```js theme={null}
import { quais } from 'quais'


// configure a multi-shard JSON-RPC provider using the dev rpc and pathing
const provider = new quais.JsonRpcProvider('https://rpc.quai.network', undefined, { usePathing: true })

// configure a multi-shard WebSocket provider using the dev rpc and pathing
const provider = new quais.WebSocketProvider('wss://rpc.quai.network', undefined, { usePathing: true })
```

### Injected Provider

There are multiple ways to configure a network provider using the [Provider](/sdk/content/interfaces/Provider) interface.

To connect to a browser wallet provider like Pelagus, use the [BrowserProvider](/sdk/content/classes/BrowserProvider) class. Pelagus bundles a Signer into the injected provider that can be used to sign transactions.

```js theme={null}
import { quais } from 'quais'

// configure pelagus as the provider
const provider = new quais.BrowserProvider(window.pelagus)

// get the signer
const signer = provider.getSigner()
```