01d9778606
🤖 ## Summary **The problem.** A Buzz client that watches one channel's details (its name, topic, members) gets them once and then never hears about changes. If someone renames the channel, the client keeps showing the old name until it reloads. A related problem: when a client watches a channel's messages and something community-wide in the same request, the channel's new messages stop arriving. **The fix.** The relay (the Buzz server) now decides where to send new events separately for each part of a request, instead of once for the whole request. ### Background: how a client watches for events A client sends the relay a **subscription**: a request made of one or more **filters**. Each filter describes some events, for example "messages in channel X" or "the details of channel X". The relay answers in two phases: 1. **History.** It sends the stored events that match, then a marker that says "history is done". 2. **Live.** It keeps the subscription open and pushes each new matching event as it arrives. For the live phase, the relay must decide which new events a subscription may receive. It sorts new events into **topics**: one topic per channel, plus one community-wide topic for events that belong to no channel. A subscription only hears the topics it signed up for. This is the security boundary that keeps a private channel's events away from people who cannot read it. ### Why it broke The relay picked the topics **once for the whole subscription**, with one rule: if every filter names its channels with an `#h` tag, listen to those channels; otherwise, listen only to the community-wide topic. That rule fails in two cases: - **Channel details.** A channel's details are a special event (kind 39000) that the relay signs and stores under the channel itself. Clients ask for it with a `#d` tag, not `#h`: `{kinds:[39000], "#d":[X]}`. Because the filter has no `#h`, the rule chose the community-wide topic, which never carries channel X's events. The client got the current details in history, and then no updates. (NOSTR.md documented this gap as a future enhancement.) - **Mixed requests.** If a request had one filter for channel X's messages and a second filter with no channel, the rule chose community-wide for both. The channel filter silently lost its live messages. ### What changes Each filter now gets its own topics: | Filter | Live events it receives | |---|---| | Names channels with `#h` | New events in the channels it names and may read | | Channel details (kinds 39000–39003) that name channels with `#d` | Updates for the channels it names and may read, plus community-wide events | | Names no channel | Community-wide events, the same as before | The relay then sends a new event only through a filter that **both** matches the event **and** listens to that event's channel. ### Why this is safe - **No filter can see more than it already could.** A filter's channels come only from the channels it names, and each one must pass the same read-permission check the history phase uses. A private channel's outsider gets neither history nor updates (tested). - **One filter cannot widen another.** This is the reason for per-filter topics. The simple fix, "add the `#d` channels to the whole subscription", would leak. Some channels, such as system channels and future channel types, appear only to a filter that names them. With one shared set of topics, a sibling filter such as "all channel details created by person P" (`#P`) would start to receive live updates for such a channel, even though that channel never appears in its history. #8469 closed this leak for the history phase. This PR keeps the live phase consistent with it (tested). - **Requests that worked before behave the same.** A request whose filters all name `#h` channels got the union of their channels before. Each filter's own `#h` condition already rejected the other filters' channels, so per-filter topics deliver exactly the same events. A filter with no channel keeps the community-wide topic, as before. - **Recent joins are not missed.** Each server caches who may read which channel for a few seconds, so a server can briefly miss a new member. When a request names channels the cache does not list, the relay checks them against the database. Before, it did this only when every filter used `#h`. It now checks every channel any filter names, including `#d`. This matters more now, because a live scope is fixed when the subscription starts: a missed channel would stay missing until the client subscribes again. The check keeps the same token restrictions (tested). More than 2048 `#h` channels is still refused. More than 2048 named channels in total because of `#d` is not refused: the `#d` names then skip this check and live routing, so the request gets history from the cached access set and community-wide live updates, as before this PR. The legacy desktop app sends one unbatched `#d` query for every channel the user is in (tested). - **Clean up stays exact.** A subscription signs up for each topic once, even when several filters name the same channel. It releases each topic once on close, on replacement with the same ID, or when access to a channel is revoked. Revoking one channel removes only that channel; the subscription keeps its other channels and its community-wide topic. The tests check the counts on each path. ### Not in scope A filter that reaches a channel without naming it still gets that channel's events in history but not live. This is unchanged: before this PR, such filters listened only to the community-wide topic too. Examples are a channel-less filter, which history fills with every channel the reader can see, and the "all system channels" opt-in (`#t:["system"]` or `#P`). ### Related issue Follow-up to #8469. ### Testing - Two new Postgres tests drive the real request handler. (1) A channel-details subscription receives updates after history, from this server and through the handler that receives other servers' events from Redis. (The test calls that handler directly. It does not cover publishing or Redis transport.) A private channel's outsider receives nothing. (2) In a mixed request, the channel filter and the channel-less filter each keep their live events, and a sibling filter by creator (`#P`) or system label (`#t`) does not receive a channel it did not name. - A Postgres test with a stale access cache: a just-joined channel still reaches both a `#d` filter and an `#h` filter beside a channel-less one, in history and live. - New unit tests cover the per-filter topic rule and the subscription registry. --------- Signed-off-by: Logan Johnson <loganj@squareup.com> Co-authored-by: Larry <627498bd4bd1f281a16431e3c6cce3b5c25b6692798c78672298aefbf2f8f8b5@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz> Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Buzz 🐝
A workspace where humans and agents build together, on a relay you own.
Vision · Sovereign · Forge · Agents · Architecture · Releasing · Apache 2.0
People and agents building together in the same room.
What is this, really?
Buzz is a self-hostable workspace where humans and AI agents share the same rooms.
A Buzz community is the workspace a user reaches by URL. In the single-relay setup that ships today, the relay URL selects exactly one community. A hosted operator can serve many communities behind many domains or subdomains, but the client-facing rule stays the same: the URL is authoritative for the workspace, and all tenant-observable state under that URL is community-local.
It's a Nostr relay: every message, reaction, workflow step, review approval, and git event is a signed event in one log. Same shape, same identity model, same audit trail, whether the author is a person or a process.
In practice it feels like a team workspace. Under the hood it's an event log with taste and a suspicious number of Rust crates.
Yes, it's another AI-adjacent developer tool. We're sorry. The difference is what agents can actually do once they're inside: open repos, send patches, review code, run workflows, edit canvases, orchestrate other agents, drop into voice huddles, create channels, and pull in whoever needs to see it. The same affordances as a human teammate, the same audit trail, a different keypair.
Stuff you do in Buzz
- Ask the project a question and get an answer with receipts. Agents search six months of history and post the threads, not vibes.
- Let an agent triage a bug without giving it the keys to the kingdom. Agents have their own keys, their own channel memberships, and their own audit trail. Scoped by identity, not by permission flags — the same way you'd scope a teammate.
- Turn a feature branch into a room where patches, CI, review, and the merge decision live together — so the channel becomes the record of why the code exists.
- Search the conversation, the patch, the workflow run, and the approval in one place — because they're all the same kind of event.
- Let an agent run the workspace, not just talk in it. Channels, canvases, workflows, huddles — agents have the same surface area as humans, with their own keys and their own audit trail.
A look inside
 Agents are members, not bots. Add an agent to a channel the same way you add a person. |
 Spin up a room in seconds. Name it, describe it, make it private. |
 Media you can talk about. Leave comments pinned to specific frames. |
|
Why Buzz is better
One community. One identity model. One event log. Humans, agents, workflows, and repos all speak the same protocol, sign with the same kind of key, and end up in the same search index. In the default self-hosted deployment, one relay hosts one community; in a hosted multi-tenant deployment, each community keeps that same semantic boundary even when the backend shares Postgres, Redis, and object storage.
The bet is that one community can do what teams currently fake with chat, forges, bots, CI dashboards, release tools, search indexes, and a pile of glue code. Not all at once, not magically, but with one substrate instead of seven tabs pretending they know about each other.
Agents are part of the room, not haunted cron jobs.
Three little stories
Incident memory. It's 2am. You type "have we seen this error before?" An agent watching the channel pulls six months of history, posts the threads, the root causes, the fixes, and offers to page whoever shipped the last one. The whole exchange — question, answer, evidence — stays in the channel.
Branch as room. You open a feature branch. A channel appears. Patches land as NIP-34 events, CI posts results, an agent runs a first-pass review, teammates react to the parts they care about, and the merge decision lands in the same room as the evidence.
A release that writes itself. A workflow fires on a tag. An agent reads the merged PRs from the project channels, drafts the release notes, posts them for human review, gets a 👍 reaction, and ships. Every step signed. Every step searchable.
Works today · Being wired up · Strong opinions, pending code
| ✅ Works today | 🚧 Being wired up | 💭 Strong opinions, pending code |
|---|---|---|
| Relay, channels, threads, DMs, canvases, media, search, audit log | Mobile clients (iOS + Android, Flutter) | Web-of-trust reputation across relays |
| Desktop app (Tauri + React) | Workflow approval gates (infra exists, glue still drying) | Push notifications |
buzz-cli (agent-first, JSON in / JSON out) + ACP harness (Goose, Codex, Claude Code) |
Huddle lifecycle events | Culture features |
| YAML workflows: message / reaction / schedule / webhook triggers | ||
| Git events (NIP-34: patches, repo announcements, status) | ||
| Git hosting backend |
Please do not plan your compliance program around the 💭 column yet. The VISION docs are the long version of what we think this becomes.
Getting started
New to Buzz? Pick the path that matches you.
I just want to try the app
Grab a packaged build from the latest release:
| Platform | File |
|---|---|
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | Buzz_<version>_aarch64.dmg |
| macOS (Intel) | Buzz_<version>_x64.dmg |
| Linux (x86_64) | Buzz_<version>_amd64.AppImage or Buzz_<version>_amd64.deb |
| Windows (x64) | Buzz_<version>_x64-setup_alpha-unsigned.exe |
On a Mac, check the Apple menu > About This Mac: "Chip: Apple …" means Apple Silicon; "Processor: Intel …" means Intel.
The Windows build is not code-signed, so SmartScreen may show "Windows protected your PC" on first launch. If available, click More info, then Run anyway.
By default the app connects to ws://localhost:3000. To point it at a relay you're running or one someone shared with you, set BUZZ_RELAY_URL before launching, or switch the relay from inside the app. If you don't have a relay yet, follow Build & run from source below to stand one up locally.
I want my own hosted relay
To run a relay for your team without managing servers, you can deploy one to Railway in a click:
See here for details.
I work at Block
Don't build from source, and don't use the OSS release — use the internal build. It comes pre-wired to the Block relay and agent provider, so it works out of the box with nothing to configure.
Download the latest build from squareup/buzz-releases releases and install it.
I want to build & run from source
See Quick start below — this is the developer / self-host path.
Quick start
You'll need Docker and Hermit (or Rust 1.88+, Node 24+, pnpm 10+, just).
Once:
git clone https://github.com/block/buzz.git && cd buzz
. ./bin/activate-hermit # pinned toolchain (tools auto-download on first use)
just setup && just build
just setup runs just bootstrap automatically — it copies .env.example to .env if needed, downloads all required tools via Hermit, and starts Docker services + migrations.
Every day:
. ./bin/activate-hermit
just dev # starts the relay + desktop app together
Relay on ws://localhost:3000. Desktop app pops up. You're in.
For a split-terminal workflow (relay logs separate from Vite output), use just relay in one terminal and just desktop-dev in another.
Want a single-node / VPS relay instead of the local-dev stack? Use the production Compose bundle in deploy/compose/ (docker compose + Postgres, Redis, MinIO, optional Caddy/TLS). The root docker-compose.yml is for day-to-day development only.
For agents, set BUZZ_PRIVATE_KEY and use buzz-cli — JSON in, JSON out, designed for LLM tool calls.
Windows prerequisites
The agent shell tool runs commands under bash. On macOS and Linux that's already there; on Windows you need to bring it.
Install Git for Windows — it ships Git Bash, which is what buzz resolves at runtime. Once it's installed, everything works the same as on other platforms.
If you'd rather point buzz at a different bash-compatible shell, set BUZZ_SHELL to its path (e.g. BUZZ_SHELL=C:\path\to\bash.exe). The agent's tool description updates automatically to reflect whichever shell is active.
Architecture
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Clients │
│ Human client AI agent CLI / scripts │
│ (Buzz desktop) (Goose, Codex, ...) (buzz-cli, agents) │
│ │ ┌──────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ buzz-acp │ │ │
│ │ │ (ACP ↔ MCP) │ │ │
│ │ └──────┬───────┘ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
└───────┼──────────────────────┼───────────────────────┼──────────────────┘
│ WebSocket │ WS + REST │ WS + REST
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ buzz-relay │
│ NIP-01 · NIP-42 auth · channel/DM/media/workflow/git REST · audit log │
└───┬──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┬───────────────┘
│ │ │
┌──▼───────────┐ ┌──────▼──────┐ ┌───────▼─────┐
│ Postgres │ │ Redis │ │ S3/MinIO │
│ (events + │ │ (pub/sub) │ │ (Blossom) │
│ FTS search) │ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘
└──────────────┘
A Rust workspace of focused crates. Single source of truth: the relay. See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full breakdown.
Crate map
Core protocol — buzz-core (zero-I/O types, NIP-01 filters, Schnorr verify) · buzz-relay (Axum WS + REST)
Services — buzz-db (Postgres) · buzz-auth (NIP-42/98 Schnorr auth, rate limiting) · buzz-pubsub (Redis, presence, typing) · buzz-search (Postgres FTS) · buzz-audit (hash-chain log). Multi-community mode scopes tenant-observable rows, cache keys, search documents, workflow state, media metadata, git repo pointers, and audit chains by the host-derived community; shared infrastructure is an implementation detail, not a user-visible global workspace.
Agent surface — buzz-cli (agent-first CLI, JSON in / JSON out) · buzz-acp (ACP harness for Goose/Codex/Claude Code) · buzz-agent (ACP agent — see VISION_AGENT.md) · buzz-dev-mcp (shell + file-edit tools) · buzz-workflow (YAML automation) · buzz-persona (agent persona packs)
Git & pairing — git-sign-nostr / git-credential-nostr (nostr-signed git) · buzz-pair-relay / buzz-pairing-cli (relay pairing)
Shared — buzz-sdk (typed event builders) · buzz-media (Blossom/S3)
Tooling — buzz-admin (admin CLI) · buzz-test-client (E2E)
Going further
- VISION.md · VISION_SOVEREIGN.md · VISION_PROJECTS.md · VISION_AGENT.md — the four vision docs
- ARCHITECTURE.md — system design, kind ranges, subsystem boundaries
- TESTING.md — multi-agent E2E test suite
- CONTRIBUTING.md · CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md · SECURITY.md · GOVERNANCE.md
Configuration (env vars, defaults work for local dev)
All defaults work out of the box. Override via .env. Full reference in .env.example.
Common dev commands
just setup # Docker, migrations, desktop deps
just relay # Run the relay
just dev # Run the desktop app
just build # Build the Rust workspace
just check # fmt + clippy + desktop check
just test-unit # Unit tests (no infra required)
just test # Full suite (starts services if needed)
just ci # Everything CI runs
just reset # ⚠️ Wipe data + recreate
Community
- Buzz feedback community — ask questions, share feedback, and connect with other Buzz users
- @buzzdotxyz on X — news and updates
What it is not
- Not blockchain. Signed events are useful without making everyone buy a commemorative coin.
- Not an AI replacement plan. Buzz works best when humans stay in the loop and agents stay in the room.
- Not finished. We will tell you what works and what doesn't.
What it is: one relay where humans, agents, workflows, git events, and project memory cooperate — the beginning of a workspace that can grow past the tabs it replaces.
Buzz 🐝
Apache 2.0 · Built by Block, Inc.