kappa-chat

p2p anarchist real-time communication protocol using append-only logs

• p2p: uses kappa-core for distributed
  data storage and replication; finds & replicates to peers on the local network
  and online
• anarchist: messages are not rigidly formatted, and anyone can add new message
  types or write clients that support them; no central or otherwise authorities
• real-time: using hypercore for very
  fast replication over arbitrary data channels (websockets, webrtc, bluetooth,
  etc)

If you know what scuttlebutt is, this is like a cheap fast real-time version for exchanging data.

Usage

var chatdb = require('kappa-chat')

var db = chatdb('./db')

/*
var msg = {
  key: 'hexkeyofauthor',
  seq: 14,
  value: {
    type: 'chat/text',
    nick: 'noffle',
    text: 'hello p2p world'
  }
}
*/
db.on('message', function (msg) {
  var content = msg.value
  if (content.type !== 'chat/text') return
  var nick = content.nick || 'anomymous'
  console.log(nick + '> ' + content.text)
})

db.publish({
  type: 'chat/text',
  nick: 'foobar',
  channel: '#testing',
  text: 'hack the planet'
})

outputs

foobar> hack the planet

API

var chatdb = require('kappa-chat')

var db = chatdb(storage)

Create a new chat database. storage is either a string (location on local disk to store the db) or an instance of random-access-storage.

db.publish(msg[, cb])

Publish a message. Messages can be structured any way you want. You and your community can decide what works best for you, or you can discuss between multiple collectives to agree upon common formats that serve you well.

A common type field can be useful for readily identifying the data. Here's an example for an IRC-like textual chat message:

{
  type: 'chat/text',
  nick: 'noffle',
  text: 'hello p2p world',
  timestamp: 1526236798000
}

db.on('entry', function (entry) { ... })

When a new p2p log entry is received, this event is emitted. An entry has the format

{
  key: 'hexkeyofauthor',
  seq: 14,
  value: {  // message
    type: 'chat/text',
    nick: 'noffle',
    channel: '#testing',
    text: 'hello p2p world'
  }
}

key is the message author's public cryto key as a hexidecimal string, and seq is the sequence number of the entry in their append-only log.

var rs = db.createReadStream([opts])

todo

Message Type Ideas

A common type field can be useful for readily identifying the data. Here's an example for an IRC-like textual chat message:

{
  type: 'chat/text',
  nick: 'noffle',
  text: 'hello p2p world',
  timestamp: 1526236798000
}

Install

With npm installed, run

$ npm install kappa-chat

License

ISC