2d280376ad
## Summary
Lands the build-now items from the desktop latency plan
(#ui-performance-deep-dive) as one change. Every perceived-latency hot
path a user hits on launch, channel open, thread open, and reply send
drops one or more round trips.
**A1 — persisted channel heads (the big one).** Native WAL SQLite cache
(`desktop/src-tauri/src/channel_head_cache.rs`) keyed by `{pubkey,
relayUrl}` scope, 32 rows/scope LRU, 1 MiB per-row drop cap,
schema-version reset, corrupt-row tolerance, checkpointed on shutdown.
Three blocking-pool commands: `channel_head_cache_load` / `_store` /
`_clear`. On the renderer side, `CommunityQueryProvider` kicks off
hydration of up to 12 heads when it constructs the query client — the
app, splash and relay preconnect mount immediately; only
`useChannelMessagesQuery` awaits the seed (`channelHeadHydration`), then
consumes a one-shot hydrated gate so a hydrated channel pays **zero**
`get_channel_window` calls on mount and exactly **one** on the
post-subscription refresh, whose response replaces page zero wholesale.
That refresh fires whether live-subscription setup succeeds or fails,
and is sequenced behind hydration so it is always a distinct
authoritative fetch (see Review follow-ups). Bounds-only persisted heads
(zero rows) are not hydrated and take the cold loading path. The
timeline loading latch recognizes native-hydrated rows as restart-safe
so they paint immediately instead of holding a skeleton. The cache is a
paint accelerator only — the relay response is always authoritative.
Replaces the legacy localStorage `messageSnapshot.ts` (removed, -401
lines).
Kill switch: `VITE_BUZZ_CHANNEL_HEAD_CACHE=off` at build time or
`localStorage["buzz-channel-head-cache"] = "off"` at runtime. Cache is
cleared on community removal and scoped per identity, so a replaced
signer never sees the previous identity's rows.
**B1 — thread aux in one response.** Relay thread filters accept
`include_aux`; the bridge appends the same authorized two-hop
reactions/edits/deletions closure a channel window gets
(`build_aux_query` shared with the window path). Renderer
`useThreadReplies` drops its two follow-up aux fetches. `next_cursor` is
computed from reply-kind rows only since aux rows are unpaged.
Documented in `docs/bridge-channel-window.md`. Thread queries keep
`staleTime: 0` (`bcfe04e2f`): an earlier revision raised it to 30s,
which CI's `thread-unread.spec.ts` caught — once the user leaves a
channel, the live subscription stops feeding that thread's cache, so a
reopen must always take the (now single) authoritative read.
**B2 — cached root on reply send.** `send_channel_message` gains
`root_event_id`; when the renderer already holds the parent (channel or
thread cache) it passes the NIP-10 root, and native signs without the
relay round trip that `resolve_thread_ref` used to make. Strict hex
parse; `root_event_id` requires `parent_event_id`; absent root falls
back to the existing relay resolution. The renderer never sends a
guessed root.
**B4** general HTTP pool idle 10s→300s, max idle per host 1→2. **B5**
relay preconnect fires as soon as identity is ready instead of waiting
for `requestIdleCallback`. One e2e test (`relay-reconnect.spec.ts`
"service restart close resets accumulated backoff") had been relying on
the idle-callback batching to skip past its own seeded dial failures
before the channel list painted; `8133d70bb` makes it wait for the
connected state instead (test-only, still fails with the 1012 backoff
reset disabled). **B6** profile freshness 60s→10 min (both the in-memory
entry check and the query `staleTime`). Tradeoff: another user's
display-name/avatar edit can take up to 10 min to propagate to a client
that already holds their profile (relay reconnect refetches
`users-batch` but resolves from the still-fresh per-pubkey entry); your
own edits still evict the entry immediately (`evictUsersBatchEntries` in
`useUpdateProfileMutation`).
### Related issue
Follows #6456/#6457/#6459/#6460 (already merged). #6455 is the
measurement instrument and is intentionally not folded in. No duplicate
PR found.
### Review follow-ups
Addressing Carl's reviews
[5001114109](https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/6572#pullrequestreview-5001114109)
and
[5002596542](https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/6572#pullrequestreview-5002596542),
each pushed as new commits (no rebase):
- `4f06b7770` fix(desktop): mount app while channel heads hydrate;
always revalidate — provider no longer gates children on the cache load;
`refreshAfterSubscribe` runs on subscribe failure too; bounds-only heads
skipped at seed; seed merges into an existing window store. +3 tests.
- `35834cb31` fix(relay): drain aux closure hops across the page clamp —
`query_all_pages` walks the `(created_at, id)` keyset via
`until`/`before_id` until a short page (`AUX_PAGE_LIMIT` =
`DEFAULT_MAX_PAGE_LIMIT`, `AUX_MAX_PAGES` = 64 warn+truncate) so
one-shot `limit: 1000` newest-first no longer drops the oldest
edits/deletions. +3 tests; `docs/bridge-channel-window.md` updated.
- `db21b0531` merge of `origin/main` `e23632941` (#6558, #6312 — no
overlap).
- `5a5566c0f` fix(desktop): sequence post-subscribe refresh behind
channel head hydration — `refreshChannelWindowMessages` awaits
`channelHeadHydration()` and, for a hydration-seeded query (`data !==
undefined && dataUpdatedAt === 0`), the in-flight snapshot fetch before
invalidating. Without this, a subscription that settles before the
SQLite load invalidated a data-less in-flight query; TanStack dedupes
that onto the existing fetch (`query-core` `fetch()` only cancels when
`state.data` exists), which returned the seeded snapshot — 0
authoritative fetches. Regression test reproduces Carl's exact ordering
(fails at `35834cb31` with 0 calls), plus a cold-channel guard that the
fix does not double-fetch.
- `b129231c8` fix(desktop): let concurrent post-hydration refreshes
share one window fetch — found independently by Max and Wren reviewing
`5a5566c0f`: subscribe settlement + reconnect both wake on the same
snapshot promise and both invalidate; the second (default
`cancelRefetch: true`) cancelled and replaced the first authoritative
fetch (3 queryFn calls, not 2, and the cancelled Tauri invoke still hits
the relay). The seeded branch now invalidates with `cancelRefetch:
false` so a second waker joins the in-flight fetch; cold/warm keep the
default (`test_canceled_stale_fetch_cannot_overwrite_catch_up_window`
relies on it). Concurrent regression test fails at `5a5566c0f` with 3.
### Testing
At `b129231c8` (PR head; verified in one shell with `git rev-parse HEAD`
= `b129231c8`): `pnpm check`, `tsc --noEmit`, desktop unit 5,393 / 0,
Playwright `boot-splash` + `channel-head-restart` + `relay-reconnect` +
`relay-reconnect-affordance` + `thread-unread` 34 / 34 on a fresh
`build:e2e`, pre-push hooks green.
At `5a5566c0f`: `pnpm check`, `tsc --noEmit`, desktop unit 5,392 / 0,
Playwright `boot-splash` + `channel-head-restart` + `relay-reconnect` +
`relay-reconnect-affordance` + `thread-unread` 34 / 34 on a fresh
`build:e2e`, pre-push hooks green.
At `35834cb31`: desktop unit 5,390 / 0; `cargo test -p buzz-relay --lib`
910 / 0; fmt + clippy `-D warnings` clean; Playwright 32 / 32 (same
specs minus affordance); GitHub CI green on every job except Smoke (3)
(unrelated project-review row-count + messaging timing flake, per Carl)
and Unit Tests (sherpa cache skeleton, below).
Earlier, all at `8133d70bb` (this PR head is `0c492366d` = 8133d70bb + a
comments-only commit correcting two `profile/hooks.ts` freshness
comments from 60s to 10 min; pre-push desktop check/typecheck/test
5,387/0 re-ran at 0c492366d) in one shell; `origin/main` = `040b203f7`
at PR open, since moved to `4baccd539` (#6558, mobile only — zero file
overlap, `git merge-tree` clean):
- `just desktop-test` — 5,387 passed / 0 failed (includes new hook-level
call-count test: cold = 1, stale-prefetched = 1, hydrated = 0 on mount
then 1 on invalidate with wholesale replacement)
- Playwright smoke `relay-reconnect.spec.ts` + `thread-unread.spec.ts` +
`channel-head-restart.spec.ts` — 30/30 (thread-unread was 8/13 at
`7acbf951b`; relay-reconnect was 15/16 at `bcfe04e2f`). The restart spec
persists a head, reloads into a fresh mock relay with the head fetch
held 5s, asserts the persisted row paints within 2s, exactly one
`get_channel_window` after open, and the stale row is removed when the
authoritative page lands.
- `pnpm typecheck`, `pnpm check` — clean
At `7acbf951b` (everything except the two-line `useThreadReplies.ts`
staleTime revert and the test-only `relay-reconnect.spec.ts` change),
also green in one shell:
- `just desktop-tauri-test` — 2,859 passed / 0 failed across the
workspace (channel_head_cache: wire shape, LRU+caps, schema reset,
corrupt-row skip)
- `just test-unit` — 632 passed (buzz-core/auth); `cargo test -p
buzz-relay --lib` — 908 passed / 0 failed
- `just check` components: fmt-check, clippy, desktop-check,
desktop-typecheck, desktop-tauri-fmt-check, desktop-tauri-clippy,
web-check, mobile-check, file-size-check — all green
- `just desktop-build`, `web-build`, `desktop-tauri-check`,
`mobile-test` (1,661 passed) — all green
CI note: the "Unit Tests" job goes red on this PR and on `main` whenever
it hits a poisoned `rust-cache` entry (an empty-directory skeleton of
`target/sherpa-onnx-prebuilt` that `sherpa-onnx-sys` build.rs trusts),
surfacing as `could not find native static library sherpa-onnx-c-api` in
`buzz-voice` — a crate this PR doesn't touch. Deleting the cache entry
and rerunning turned the job green at `0c492366d` (28/28); it re-poisons
on the next `main` push until the workflow clears that directory after
cache restore.
Reviewed in-channel by Wren (9 / 9 / 9.5) and Eva (9 / 9 / 9), and
line-by-line by me before opening; the staleTime fix re-verified by Wren
and me independently; the relay-reconnect test fix bisected and verified
by me.
---------
Signed-off-by: Perci <5a968df9a7494b4e019b9ecf739e088ba61097b4312124e9a88ae5b42e3f5f3e@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Signed-off-by: Max <d8473ee32b973aa31a21a65adddcc4b69cc2a8a4dee8121ecd51926e0cddbc02@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Signed-off-by: Wren <5217c5c2f7bfb4333e46d17c98a9255a52dadee18dcd43a43536b95e6776dfa0@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Signed-off-by: Meli <5aaa86bce934fc3445fc254aab560a40923f10252f92107e665073dede0e04d3@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Co-authored-by: Perci <5a968df9a7494b4e019b9ecf739e088ba61097b4312124e9a88ae5b42e3f5f3e@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Co-authored-by: Max <d8473ee32b973aa31a21a65adddcc4b69cc2a8a4dee8121ecd51926e0cddbc02@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Co-authored-by: Wren <5217c5c2f7bfb4333e46d17c98a9255a52dadee18dcd43a43536b95e6776dfa0@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Co-authored-by: Meli <5aaa86bce934fc3445fc254aab560a40923f10252f92107e665073dede0e04d3@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
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
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.