trueseal-protocol — Overview

trueseal-protocol is the wire spec for the ecosystem. It says how a sync client talks to a relay, byte for byte. There’s no code, no library, no repo to depend on — just the spec.

Any relay that implements it accepts any client that implements it, and vice versa. The spec is the contract; everything plugged into it is interchangeable.

What the protocol covers

• Wire framing — the byte layout of every message.
• Message types — Push, Deliver, Heartbeat, Ack, Error, DeliverAck, their tags, their meanings.
• Push body layout — how a sender addresses a blob to a recipient.
• Ack and DeliverAck semantics — what each acknowledgement actually guarantees.
• Error semantics — permanent rejection, do not retry.
• Envelope size cap — enforced on both sides.

What it doesn’t cover

• Relay storage policy (TTL, reap intervals, infra choices).
• The Noise handshake patterns themselves — those belong to the Noise Protocol spec. The wire spec just says which patterns to use where.
• Envelope format and the sync semantics on top of it — that’s trueseal-sync’s territory.
• Client-side delivery guarantees — outbox, replay, ordering, all client concerns.

Who implements it today

trueseal-sync on the client side. Opens Push Sessions to send blobs, Receive Sessions to receive them.

trueseal-relay on the server side. Accepts both, routes blobs between devices.