A private home for your closest people.
"Share with your circle, not the world."
Nah ("Not Alone Here") is a private social network limited to 150 friends — inspired by Path, built on modern open-source infrastructure, and designed to never compromise on intimacy.
Viral? Nah. Vital.
- Small by design — 150 friends max (Dunbar's number)
- Private by default — no public timelines, no algorithmic feeds
- Real friends, real moments — mutual friendships, rich moment sharing
- No algorithmic theater — chronological feed only, no engagement optimization
- Open source — community-funded, transparent, yours to verify
Nah stands on the shoulders of giants. We're grateful to these open source projects:
| Project | What we use it for |
|---|---|
| @mastodon/mastodon | Backend social networking engine (forked) |
| @sveltejs/svelte | Frontend framework (Svelte 5) |
| @sveltejs/kit | App framework, routing, SSR |
| @huntabyte/shadcn-svelte | UI component primitives |
| @tailwindlabs/tailwindcss | Utility-first CSS |
| @TanStack/query | Data fetching & caching |
| Project | What we use it for |
|---|---|
| OpenSpec · @openspec | Specification-driven development workflow |
| @caddyserver/caddy | Web server (planned) |
| @getsentry/sentry | Error tracking |
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Frontend | Svelte 5 + SvelteKit (PWA) |
| UI | Tailwind CSS v4 + shadcn-svelte |
| Backend | Mastodon (vanilla fork, lightly modified) |
| Database | PostgreSQL + Redis |
| Storage | S3-compatible + CDN |
See design.md for full architecture details.
/apps
/web # SvelteKit PWA (coming soon)
/server # Mastodon fork (coming soon)
/packages
/ui # Nah design system (coming soon)
/docs
/_posts # Build-in-public blog posts
/openspec
/changes # Feature specifications
/nah-vision # Core vision (complete)
/cap-01-* # Capability implementations (scaffolded)
- Vision & Specs — Why, what, and how
- Reflections — Build-in-public blog
🚧 Pre-alpha — Vision documented, implementation starting.
- Vision proposal
- Technical design
- Feature specifications (8 capabilities)
- Project scaffolding
- Core implementation
- Alpha release
- Node.js 20+
- pnpm
- Docker (for Mastodon backend)
- Ruby 3.3+ (for local docs preview)
We use pre-commit for code quality:
# Install pre-commit
brew install pre-commit # or pip install pre-commit
# Install hooks
pre-commit install
# Run manually
pre-commit run --all-filesNah is open source and community-driven. We're not ready for contributions yet, but we will be soon.
Watch this repo to follow along as we build.
AGPL-3.0 — Same as Mastodon.
Nah is community-funded. No ads, no data sales, no VC.
Support options coming soon via Open Collective and GitHub Sponsors.
"Nah is a private home for your closest people — to share life without performing for the internet."