Iris Chat

Iris Chat is an encrypted chat client built on the Iris shared Rust core. This crate publishes the iris command line tool and the iris_chat_core library used by the native apps.

Install

cargo install iris-chat

CLI

iris account create --name Alice
iris whoami
iris chat create <user-id>
iris send <chat-id> "hello"
iris read <chat-id>
iris listen

Use --json for scripts and agents.

For an existing direct chat, inspect the saved name and social connection, keep private favorites, approve an exact pending name, or change public follows:

iris contact show <user-id>
iris contact favorite <user-id>
iris contact unfavorite <user-id>
iris contact nickname <user-id> "Tea friend"
iris contact note <user-id> "Met at lunch"
iris contact approve-name <user-id> "New name"
iris contact follow <user-id>
iris contact unfollow <user-id>

Favorite stars, nicknames, and notes sync privately between your devices and compatible Iris apps. An empty nickname or note removes it. Changes are saved locally first and retried after reconnecting. Linked devices exchange changes through their authorized device channel; your main device must be online to bridge those changes to other apps. Older timestamp-only clients can provide initial nicknames and notes but cannot override newer synced edits or removals. Observed names and name approvals stay local; approval preserves the first known name and records the approved change in the chat. Public follows use your Nostr follow list and require your main device's secret key and a configured message server. contact show and chat reads include contact_identity and social_connection in JSON output, and do not mark messages seen.

Use a separate --data-dir for each account, including bots. A data folder is bound to one account; restoring another key there is rejected without deleting its history or replacing its saved credentials. Devices of the same account can continue using that account's folder. Older folders are adopted only when their stored identity is unambiguous. If a folder contains multiple identities or history with no identifiable account, keep it for recovery and use a new folder for the bot:

iris --data-dir /path/to/bot-chat restore <bot-secret-key>
iris --data-dir /path/to/bot-chat listen

Persistent CLI service

On macOS, Linux and Windows, run one foreground service for a profile:

iris --data-dir /path/to/bot-chat service run

Other CLI invocations with that same data directory automatically use its private local endpoint. listen can stay connected while send, read, sync and other commands use the same encryption runtime. The existing profile lock remains held by the service. Different profiles remain independent. Use service status for connection health and service stop for a graceful shutdown. A process supervisor may restart service run after a crash; stale endpoints are reclaimed only after acquiring the exclusive profile lock.

The transport uses a private Unix socket on macOS/Linux and an owner-only named pipe on Windows, with same-user peer verification in both directions. It does not open a TCP port. Set IRIS_REQUIRE_SERVICE=1 in supervised scripts to fail closed when the service is unavailable. A failed or disconnected send is never retried automatically; inspect message/delivery state first. Stream consumers must retain handled message IDs and reconcile history after reconnecting. ready means the local subscription is established; service status reports network readiness.

Without a running service, standalone commands continue to work as before. The service is a desktop CLI feature; iOS and Android apps continue to own their existing in-process core and platform push/background lifecycle.

Set IRIS_CHAT_SAME_HOST_HASHTREE=1 to let the logged-in Chat FIPS endpoint discover authenticated hashtree.blob/1 providers over fixed loopback UDP. Chat's local cache, one composite FIPS provider route, and its configured Blossom sources share the canonical hash-verifying BlobRouter. Provider misses, failures, or exit leave the other routes available, while attachment writes remain application-owned and unchanged.

Process-level integration tests may set IRIS_CHAT_FIPS_LOCAL_RENDEZVOUS_ADDR to an isolated non-zero IPv4 loopback address. Normal application runs leave it unset and use the fixed FIPS same-host rendezvous address.

Multi-device sync uses the independent Osiris and LNVPS FIPS WebSocket seeds by default. Set IRIS_FIPS_WEBSOCKET_SEED_URLS to replace them with a comma-separated list of explicit wss://.../fips URLs, or set it to an empty value for an isolated run. These are authenticated FIPS physical peers; ordinary Nostr message servers remain Nostr event and discovery/signaling relays and do not carry FIPS packets. Signed update notices use the shared nostr-pubsub path over both connected FIPS peers and configured message servers.

Primary development is on hashtree: https://git.iris.to/#/npub1399g0q2gtwjcglyjcg3jw3rcllqhm375pwases5hkvqa56aqe5wsz2eaap/iris-chat-rs