A community-driven specification project for a modular, decentralized messaging protocol.
DMF is not software — it's an evolving specification, assembled from discussions in the @distributed community. The goal: collect ideas, structure them, and eventually produce a solid design document for potential implementation.
Core idea: a thin coordination layer that composes existing identity, transport, and storage primitives — rather than replacing them. Messaging is built on top of a resilient contact graph, not the other way around.
Early-stage spec. One architecture document exists (docs/architecture.md), covering:
- Design philosophy and anti-goals
- Layer model (identity, transport, storage, messaging)
- Integration and bridge patterns
- Architectural decisions and trade-offs
A protocol where:
- Your contact graph survives platform shutdowns and censorship events
- Messages route through whatever transport is available (clearnet, Tor, Yggdrasil, mesh)
- Clients, transports, and storage backends are swappable — no lock-in
- AI agents and humans are first-class participants, via the same interface
- Bridges to Telegram, Matrix, email exist without polluting the core
- Competing with Telegram on UX
- Groups larger than ~100 members (broadcast is separate)
- Real-time voice/video
- Blockchain consensus
- A single canonical client
Discussions happen in @distributed. If you have a concrete proposal or want to refine the spec, open an issue or PR here.
Architecture docs follow foxcool/architecture-doc-template (arc42 + C4 Model). Language: English (code, docs, commits).