Meshline Protocol 1.0

Status: Specification draft

Meshline is a communication system that uses blockchain addresses as long-term identities, devices for everyday use, and public relays for discovery, store-and-forward delivery, and optional channel and group hosting. This specification defines the network interoperability rules between clients, account devices, and public relays.

Overall interaction

Interaction diagram · Mermaid source

flowchart LR
    C[Client] -->|Read membership records| R[Meshline Registry]
    C -->|Verify RelayDescriptor| H[Currently connected or home relay]
    H -->|Resolve account route using GET_VALUE| D[(Relay DHT)]
    H -->|Query or deliver directly using relay RPC| T[Recipient home relay]
    T -->|Synchronize account message timeline| C2[Recipient client]

Protocol boundaries and dependencies

Document	Contents	Consumers and outcomes
General conventions	Defines the common scope, normative terminology, network context, data representations, and cryptographic conventions	All implementations follow the same foundational rules and use the same protocol inputs
Relay Registry	Defines the records, public ABI, and observable behavior of the on-chain public-relay membership directory	Clients and relays obtain candidate relays' identities, HTTPS endpoints, and membership status
Client–relay protocol	Defines the `/meshline/v1` HTTP/WSS interfaces, device sessions, account and device state, profiles, account route access, contacts, messaging, and channel and group hosting	Clients call their home relay, currently connected relay, or designated hosting relay
Relay DHT protocol	Defines the relay overlay, connection authentication, and distributed publication, replication, lookup, and candidate selection of account routes	Public relays maintain the account-to-home-relay mapping over `/meshline/kad/1.0.0`
Relay RPC protocol	Defines direct account queries and cross-relay delivery of end-to-end ciphertext	Verified public relays communicate directly over `/meshline/relay/1.0.0`
Normative test vectors	Provides fixed inputs, protocol bytes, and expected results	Implementers run deterministic interoperability tests for encoding, signatures, derivation, and encryption

Clients do not act as DHT nodes. Messages are not forwarded hop by hop along a DHT lookup path; after resolving the recipient's account route, the source relay connects directly to the recipient's relay. The Registry handles public-relay membership only and does not store user identities, contacts, account routes, or messages.