Aether

An append-only stream of human thought, without identity.

Aether is a protocol for a global append-only stream of messages with no authors, no accounts, no central server, and no deletions. Anyone can write. Anyone can read.

Development

This codebase was generated and iterated with LLM-assisted(OpenAI-Codex) development.

What this repo provides

• aetherd - operator daemon (serve, post, mine, doctor, version)
• aether - user CLI (timeline, post, status, peers, search, export, count)
• aether-web - web UI binary with embedded node
• custom wire protocol (HELLO, MESSAGE, SYNC*, ACK, PEERS)
• PoW-gated message acceptance
• append-only segmented storage with sealed-segment compression
• peer reputation and abuse controls
• Tor-first transport with onion-service support and optional managed Tor mode

Protocol details: PROTOCOL.md
Implementation status: PROJECT_STATUS.md
Deployment runbook: DEPLOYMENT.md

Quick start (local dev)

Prerequisite: Go 1.23+

Build:

go build -o aetherd.exe ./cmd/aetherd
go build -o aether.exe ./cmd/aether
go build -o aether-web.exe ./cmd/aether-web

Run one node in dev-clearnet mode:

$env:AETHER_DEV_CLEARNET="true"
$env:AETHER_REQUIRE_TOR="false"
$env:AETHER_LISTEN_ADDR="127.0.0.1:9000"
$env:AETHER_ADVERTISE_ADDR="127.0.0.1:9000"
.\aetherd.exe serve

Post:

$env:AETHER_DEV_CLEARNET="true"
$env:AETHER_REQUIRE_TOR="false"
$env:AETHER_BOOTSTRAP_PEERS="127.0.0.1:9000"
.\aetherd.exe post "hello"

Production profile

Use Tor-required mode:

• AETHER_REQUIRE_TOR=true
• AETHER_DEV_CLEARNET=false
• AETHER_UI_ALLOWED_ORIGINS can be set to a comma-separated list of trusted external web origins if the UI/API is hosted across origins. Same-origin UI requests and non-browser local tooling do not need this.
• AETHER_SYNC_TRUST_QUORUM=2 or higher enables cross-peer agreement checks for sync metadata before trusting cursor recovery.

Optional managed Tor process:

• AETHER_MANAGE_TOR=true
• AETHER_TOR_BINARY=tor

If managed Tor is disabled, Tor must already be reachable at:

• AETHER_TOR_SOCKS (default 127.0.0.1:9050)
• AETHER_TOR_CONTROL (default 127.0.0.1:9051)

Useful commands

aetherd version
aetherd doctor
aetherd mine "message"
aetherd post "message"
aetherd post "<peer:port>" "message"
aetherd serve

Docker dev mesh

docker compose -f .\deploy\docker-compose.dev.yml up --build

CI and release

• CI test workflow: .github/workflows/ci.yml
• Tag-triggered release workflow with multi-platform artifacts, SHA256SUMS, PROVENANCE.json, and keyless Sigstore bundles: .github/workflows/release.yml

Safety and claims

Privacy and permanence are goals, not absolute guarantees. Retention depends on archival participation. Review PROTOCOL.md and PROJECT_STATUS.md before production use.