Ghostline

Ghostline is an experimental terminal chat project written in Rust. It is split into a small workspace:

• ghostline-client: a Ratatui terminal client for creating invites, joining invites, and opening conversations.
• ghostline-server: a TCP relay that pairs clients by invite room key and forwards encrypted message frames.
• ghostline-core: shared protocol constants and types.

The server does not decrypt chat messages. Clients exchange keys during the invite handshake and then send encrypted frames through the relay.

Current State

This is still a work-in-progress prototype. Some operational details are placeholder-style and are currently hard-coded in the codebase:

• The relay address is the shared SERVE_IP constant in core/src/lib.rs. Right now it is 127.0.0.1:1278, so the client and server are set up for local testing by default.
• There is not yet a runtime config file, CLI flag, environment variable, or deployment profile for choosing a public server address.
• Server rooms live only in memory. Restarting the server drops waiting rooms and active chat registrations.
• Invite room keys are used to find the waiting room on the relay. Treat them as temporary connection secrets.

Before using Ghostline outside local testing, the server address/configuration story needs to be finished and the relay should be deployed behind the address that clients are compiled or configured to use.

Running Locally

Start the relay:

cargo run -p ghostline-server

In another terminal, create an invite:

cargo run -p ghostline-client -- --invite

In a second client terminal, join that invite:

cargo run -p ghostline-client -- --join <invite-key>

After both clients have exchanged profiles, either client can open the conversation list:

cargo run -p ghostline-client -- --talk

You can also run the client without arguments to use the interactive menu:

cargo run -p ghostline-client

Local Data

Ghostline stores local client data under ~/.ghostline:

• user_id: persistent random user ID.
• friend_ids.toml: encrypted friend data, room keys, chat keys, and message history.

The friend store is encrypted with a storage password. The client prompts for that password in the terminal, or you can provide it through GHOSTLINE_STORAGE_PASSWORD for non-interactive runs.

Development

Run the test suite with:

cargo test

Format the workspace with:

cargo fmt