5f8d0aab98
## Summary
Two open channels in one community could have the same name, so the
channel list showed two `#square-ios` rows and people could not tell
them apart. Now the relay refuses to create, rename or open up a channel
when that would give it the same name as another channel in the channel
list, ignoring case. The client gets `invalid: an open channel named "…"
already exists`.
The rule follows Slack: an archived channel keeps its name until it is
deleted. Private channels, DMs and unlisted channels may still repeat
names. So a refusal never reveals that a private channel exists.
The PR also adds a script that renames the duplicates that exist today.
It sends each rename through the relay, so relays keep serving while it
runs. The stacked PR https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/8787 then adds a
database index that enforces the rule. This PR is the release that must
be fully deployed before that index.
## Details
**Which channels the rule covers.** A *listed* channel: open, not
unlisted, a stream or forum, not deleted. Archived channels are
included. The check runs on create, rename, private → open and unlisted
→ listed.
**Relay check** (`crates/buzz-db/src/store/channel.rs`,
`crates/buzz-relay/src/handlers/ingest.rs`):
- The check runs after the write, in the same transaction, under a
per-name lock. So two concurrent writers cannot both commit the same
name.
- A refused create or edit (kind:9007 or kind:9002) gets `OK false
"invalid: an open channel named … already exists"`. Nothing from it is
stored.
- The relay gives the same answer when the database index from
https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/8787 refuses the write. That covers
the rollout, and a rollback from that release.
- A channel create with no `h` tag (the new channel's id) is now refused
before it is stored. Before, such a create ran after the event was
stored, so a refusal (for example, a taken name) still answered
"accepted". All first-party clients send `h`.
**Operator rename** (`crates/buzz-relay/src/handlers/side_effects.rs`).
The rename script needs to rename channels it does not own, archived
ones included. So a relay operator may now send a channel edit that
changes only the name of a listed channel. Everything else still needs
the channel's owner or admin.
- "Operator" means `RELAY_OPERATOR_PUBKEYS`, the owner fallback, or an
`operator` row in `relay_operators`. A moderator is not an operator.
- The rename also applies to an archived listed channel, whatever the
operator's role in that channel, and the channel stays archived. Other
edits of an archived channel are still refused.
- Private channels, unlisted channels and DMs still need the channel's
owner or admin. The relay decides "listed" under the channel row lock,
so a channel made private during the rename is not renamed.
- The rename takes the normal edit path: the name check, the stored
event, the channel metadata event and fan-out.
**Rename script**
(`scripts/maintenance/rename_duplicate_listed_channel_names.sh`, with
the read-only plan `plan_duplicate_listed_channel_renames.sql`):
- In each group of listed channels that share a name, the oldest
unarchived channel keeps the name. Each other channel becomes
`<name>-<first 8 chars of id>`, or `<name>-<id>` when that is also
taken. When all the channels in a group are archived, the oldest keeps
the name.
- **Starter channels.** Released desktop and mobile apps create
`#general` and `#welcome-everyone` when a community has no open,
unarchived stream with that name. Under the new rule, the relay refuses
that create while an archived channel has the name, and the apps' setup
fails. So the script also renames `general` and `welcome-everyone` when
every listed channel with that name is archived. That frees the name for
the apps.
- The apps create each starter at a fixed id, derived from the relay's
address. If a channel already has that id, the relay refuses the create
there whatever its name, so a rename cannot help. For that name the
script renames nothing, and an archived starter at its id keeps the
name. The script computes the ids from `BUZZ_RELAY_URL` (or
`BUZZ_STARTER_ORIGIN` when the apps use a different address) and prints
them, so the operator can check them against a client. A relay-side fix
for those clients is planned separately.
- The operator key goes in `BUZZ_PRIVATE_KEY`. It must be a relay
operator and a member of the community. The script stops at the first
auth refusal and says so.
- The script stops before the plan for an unknown host, an archived
community and a community being deleted, and says what to do.
- A failed rename (the new name is now taken, or the relay can't be
reached) is reported, and the script goes on. At the end it reads the
plan again and exits 1 if any rename remains. `--dry-run` prints the
plan.
- The script replaces the earlier direct-SQL repair and `buzz-admin
reconcile-channels --metadata`, which needed every relay pod stopped.
**Duplicates that exist today** (read on 2026-10-30):
`ml-platform-public` (`d41a31f8…`, `7be55f5a…`) and `square-ios`
(`79f8e9d4…` archived, `fe246d3e…` live).
### Rollout
The full procedure, with exact SQL and recovery steps, is in
`docs/channel-name-uniqueness-deployment.md` in
https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/8787.
1. **Deploy this PR.** Wait until no older relay pod serves; check the
image of every pod. An older relay can still create a duplicate, and it
refuses the operator rename.
2. **Rename the existing duplicates in each community**, with relays
serving. The key must be an `operator`, not a moderator, and a member of
the community (`RELAY_URL=wss://<host> buzz-admin add-member --pubkey
<npub>`).
```sh
DATABASE_URL=postgres://... BUZZ_PRIVATE_KEY=<operator key> \
scripts/maintenance/rename_duplicate_listed_channel_names.sh --dry-run
<community host>
# review the plan, then run it again without --dry-run
```
For the duplicates known today, the newer `ml-platform-public` and the
archived `square-ios` (`79f8e9d4…`) get the `-<id8>` suffix.
3. **Confirm that no duplicate remains** in any community (query in the
doc).
4. **Build the index, then deploy
https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/8787.**
Rollback from https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/8787 goes to this
release only, keeping the index, with auto-migration off.
### Related issue
None found.
### Testing
- **Live local relay.** The script ran against a local relay built at
9ee09a619, with relay membership required and six seeded channels
(`ops`, `OPS`, an archived `Ops`, a private `ops`, `dev`, `DEV`):
- `--dry-run` listed the three renames.
- With the operator key not yet a member, the script stopped at the
first refusal, named the membership precondition and renamed nothing.
- After `buzz-admin add-member`, it renamed all three and exited 0. The
archived channel stayed archived, the private `ops` kept its name, and a
second run renamed nothing.
- With the community archived, the script stopped with the unarchive
message.
- Rerun at 0df245e3c as part of the full rollout in
https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/8787: the relay refused a new
duplicate over the wire, and the script renamed the seeded duplicates
with the relay serving.
- **Relay tests** (`group_state_postgres_tests.rs`): a taken name is
refused as `invalid:` and nothing is stored; a create with no `h` tag is
refused before it is stored; an operator can rename only a listed
channel, only the name, archived or not, and a moderator cannot; an
operator rename is refused if the channel stops being listed before it
is saved.
- **Store tests** (`channel_name_postgres_tests.rs`): create, rename,
private → open and unlisted → listed are refused for a taken name;
private and unlisted names may repeat; an archived channel keeps its
name and a deleted one frees it; of two concurrent creates with one
name, the second is refused once the first commits.
- **Plan and script tests** (`listed_channel_name_postgres_tests.rs`)
run the shipped SQL and shell script: which channel keeps the name, the
starter cases, names at the 255-character limit, names with control
characters or a leading `-`, and the auth and community stops. The
starter-id computation matches the mobile app's test vectors.
- The new guards were each removed once to confirm that a test fails.
- The full local Postgres test runs (buzz-db, buzz-relay, buzz-admin)
pass, except 6 tests that also fail locally on main and pass in CI.
### Database review checklist
- [x] Phase: writer release (deploy), plus a maintenance script. The
stacked PR adds the contract index; this release is its required stop.
- [x] No trigger, function, procedure, rule or foreign key.
- [x] No migration. The script writes nothing to the database itself. It
reads a plan, and the relay applies each rename as a normal channel
edit. `docs/database.md` Rule 3 asks for maintenance scripts in their
own PR. The script is here because it depends on the operator rename in
this PR.
- [x] Contract: not in this PR.
- [x] Rule 4 locations: no schema change.
- [x] Deployed relay: the schema is unchanged, so the deployed relay
keeps working. An older relay refuses the operator rename, so run the
script only after this release is fully deployed. This release also
works beside the contract index (tests above).
- [x] Timeouts: no index build or bulk write here.
🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)
---------
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.