waste-go/FUTURE.md

# Future Vision

WASTE's design philosophy is still sound: small trusted groups, no central server, encrypted everything, equal nodes. That's essentially what Signal's sealed sender and private groups do today, just without a self-hosted option. This gap is worth filling.

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## Architecture

Two clean layers, connected by the IPC port.

### Daemon
The real application. A long-running background process that handles everything:

- Peer mesh and connection management (WebRTC DataChannels, DTLS, ICE)
- Cryptography and handshake (Ed25519 identity, nacl/box signaling, YAW/2.1 FS)
- NAT traversal (ICE/STUN via pion/webrtc — no custom relay needed)
- File transfer (dedicated binary DataChannels per transfer)

Exposes a local JSON API over TCP (`127.0.0.1:17337`). Can run headlessly — SSH into a box and the mesh stays alive even with no UI attached.

### UI Layer
Talks to the daemon over the IPC port. The separation means the UI is replaceable without touching the core.

Target: a web frontend (React or similar) wrapped in a native binary using a Tauri-style approach — native packaging, OS webview, no Electron weight. Avoids the wxWidgets ugliness of the old wxWASTE fork and the Qt licensing headaches of the VIA fork.

#### TUI ✅ (shipped)
A terminal UI (`cmd/tui`) using [Bubble Tea](https://github.com/charmbracelet/bubbletea). Three-pane layout: rooms, messages, peers. Supports group chat, DMs, room switching, invite generation. Works over SSH.

#### Web UI ✅ (shipped)
React + Vite frontend. Two modes:
- **Browser mode** — runs entirely in-browser, connects directly to the anchor via WebSocket. No daemon required. Identity persists in `localStorage`. File sharing, file push, per-peer ICE/NAT status.
- **Daemon mode** — web UI connects to a local daemon over WebSocket IPC. Same UI, different adapter.

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## Protocol

### NAT Traversal ✅ (WebRTC ICE/STUN)
Solved by using WebRTC DataChannels via pion. ICE gathers host + server-reflexive (STUN) candidates and performs UDP hole punching automatically. The anchor (`cmd/anchor`) doubles as a STUN server on UDP/3478.

### TURN relay ✅ (shipped)
Both browser and daemon modes support TURN relay.

**Browser mode:** `iceServers()` in `browser.ts` reads `WASTE_CONFIG.turnURL` and `WASTE_CONFIG.turnSecret`, generates time-limited HMAC-SHA1 credentials (compatible with coturn `use-auth-secret`), and adds the TURN server to the ICE candidate list. The peer dot turns yellow for relayed connections (`candidate_type: relay`).

**Daemon mode:** `-turn-url` and `-turn-secret` flags on `cmd/daemon`. `turnICEServers()` in `internal/netmgr/manager.go` generates HMAC-SHA1 credentials and injects them into the ICE server list for every new peer connection.

### Signaling ✅ YAW/2.1 (shipped)
Forward-secret signaling via per-session ephemeral X25519 keys. Falls back transparently to 2.0 static-key sealing for peers that don't speak 2.1.

### Multi-Network Support ✅ (shipped)
One daemon, multiple simultaneously-joined networks. Per-network HKDF-derived identities prevent cross-network correlation. Network-scoped SQLite stores.

### Invite System ✅ (shipped)
`waste:<base64>` URIs encoding anchor URL + network name. `--join` flag on daemon and TUI. `Ctrl+I` in TUI or `generate_invite` via IPC.

### File Transfer ✅ (shipped)
Dedicated binary DataChannel per transfer (`f:<xid>`). SHA-256 integrity verification. 64 KiB chunks with backpressure. Auto-accept. In browser mode: both pull (browse peer's shared folder) and push (📎 send directly to a peer).

### Peer Gossip ✅ (shipped)
When a new peer connects, the mesh immediately gossips the full peer list to them (`peer_gossip` wire message). New arrivals discover existing peers without needing the anchor to re-introduce them. The anchor becomes optional once the first handshake has happened — the mesh self-heals around anchor downtime.

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## Remaining Work

### Session Persistence ✅ (shipped)
Browser mode now auto-rejoins on reload. The last-used network name, alias, and anchor URL are saved to `localStorage` on join and restored on load. A ⏻ logout button in the sidebar clears session state (optionally including the identity keypair) and reloads the page.

### Per-Network Share Directories ✅ (shipped)
Share state is tracked per `network_id` in the store (`sharedFilesByNetwork`). Switching networks switches the active share.

### Persistent Multi-Share Configuration ✅ (shipped)
Multiple share roots per network, with global (all networks) or scoped visibility.

- **Daemon:** `shares.json` next to `identity.json` in the data dir. `add_share`/`remove_share`/`list_shares` IPC commands. File listing recursively walks all share roots, returning relative paths. Backward compatible with the existing `set_share_dir` single-dir mechanism.
- **Browser:** `waste_shares` in `localStorage` stores named share records (folder name, global flag). The `ShareManager` sidebar component shows the list with re-pick (↺) and remove (✕) buttons. Actual `File` objects live in memory — the record persists across reloads so the user can restore with one click.

### Additional Channels / Rooms ✅ (shipped)
Custom rooms are supported in both the web UI and the TUI.

**Web UI:** The `+` button in the Rooms sidebar creates custom rooms, stored in `customRooms` keyed by `network_id`. Room names are slugified strings — any peer that sends to a room name causes it to appear on the recipient automatically.

**TUI:** Type `/room <name>` in the input to create a room. The daemon persists it in the `rooms` SQLite table and echoes a `room_created` IPC event back. On reconnect, rooms are restored via `state_snapshot`. Rooms that receive messages while not active show a `*` prefix in the sidebar; the marker clears when you switch to that room.

DM rooms (`dm:<peerId>`) appear automatically in both interfaces when messages arrive.

### File Transfer UX ✅ (shipped)
- Manual accept/reject via the Transfers panel in the sidebar
- Transfer cancellation (`file-cancel` message, closes DataChannel)
- Live progress bar per active transfer
- Push (📎) sends directly to a peer without them needing to share a folder

**Not yet done:** resume after disconnection, daemon-side download directory.

### Native UI
Web frontend (React, already built) + Tauri shell for native packaging. The IPC protocol is the full boundary — the UI is already a pure consumer. Main work: Tauri setup, system tray, OS notifications.

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## Roadmap

| Status | Item |
|---|---|
| ✅ shipped | Daemon + anchor server |
| ✅ shipped | WebRTC DataChannels (ICE/STUN hole punching) |
| ✅ shipped | Ed25519 identity, nacl/box signaling (YAW/2.0 + 2.1) |
| ✅ shipped | IPC protocol — join/leave/chat/DM/state |
| ✅ shipped | Message persistence (SQLite, per-network) |
| ✅ shipped | TUI (`cmd/tui`, Bubble Tea) |
| ✅ shipped | Invite system (`waste:` URI, `--join` flag) |
| ✅ shipped | Multi-network support (HKDF derived identities) |
| ✅ shipped | File transfer (binary DataChannels, pull + push) |
| ✅ shipped | Forward-secret signaling (YAW/2.1 ephemeral X25519) |
| ✅ shipped | Peer gossip (anchor-free mesh reconnection) |
| ✅ shipped | Web UI — browser mode + daemon mode |
| ✅ shipped | Per-peer NAT/ICE status, identity backup/restore |
| ✅ shipped | Per-network share directories |
| ✅ shipped | Additional channels/rooms per network |
| ✅ shipped | TURN relay (browser mode, coturn `use-auth-secret`) |
| ✅ shipped | File transfer UX (progress, cancel, manual accept) |
| ✅ shipped | Session persistence + logout (browser mode) |
| ✅ shipped | Persistent multi-share config (shares.json + localStorage) |
| ✅ shipped | Subfolder support + directory browser UI in file browser |
| ✅ shipped | Signed invites + invite-only networks (`RequireInvite`) |
| ✅ shipped | Hash-based "come hang" links (`#waste:...`) |
| ✅ shipped | Protocol extensions documented in EXTENSIONS.md |
| ✅ shipped | TURN relay for daemon mode (`-turn-url` / `-turn-secret`) |
| ✅ shipped | TUI room creation + daemon-side room persistence |
| ✅ shipped | Unread room indicators in TUI (`*` prefix) |
| next | File transfer resume after disconnection |
| future | Native UI (React + Tauri) |

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## What to Keep from WASTE

- **Small group** — not a public network, not federated, not discoverable
- **No registration** — no phone number, no email, no central service
- **Encrypted everything** — at rest and in transit, end to end
- **Equal nodes** — no peer is "the server"; the anchor is dumb infrastructure
- **The soul** — a private overlay for people you actually trust