Chat Grid

A Mostly Vibed, Audio-first Interactive Playground

Chat Grid is one of those projects that started with a random idea, and then grew to be many things, but most with spacial audio as its core. Briefly put, Chat Grid allows users to move around a grid and interact with each other, or with items placed on the grid. Your voice, as well as items are shared as positional audio. Item types currently range from dice and a wheel to a fully-playable toy piano and media players with directional audio. New item types can be added as plugins.

Chat Grid is designed to be run on a secure server with users connecting via a web client. The client works best currently with Windows browsers, with minimal testing on mobile/Mac. Ideally, client apps would be better in the long-run, especially for mobile.

Local Run

1. Start server

cd server
cp config.example.toml config.toml
cp .env.sample .env
# for local dev set CHGRID_HOST_ORIGIN=http://localhost:5173 in .env
uv run python main.py --allow-insecure-ws

2. Start client

cd client
npm install
npm run dev

3. Open http://localhost:5173

Notes:

• Server defaults to config.toml when present.
• Server bind/port defaults are 127.0.0.1:8765 unless changed in config or CLI flags.
• Client dev defaults to Vite local host/port (localhost:5173) unless flags override.
• Server runtime env lives in server/.env; server/.env.sample shows the required variables.

Common server overrides:

• uv run python main.py --config /path/to/config.toml
• uv run python main.py --host 0.0.0.0 --port 9000
• uv run python main.py --allow-insecure-ws (local/dev without TLS)
• uv run python main.py --ssl-cert /path/fullchain.pem --ssl-key /path/privkey.pem
• uv run python main.py --bootstrap-admin (one-time admin creation)

Production Deploy

Use deploy/README.md for the full deployment guide.

Summary:

1. Copy repo to your server.
2. Run ./deploy/scripts/install_server.sh.
3. Publish the client with ./deploy/scripts/up.sh.
4. Add websocket/auth proxy routes using deploy/apache/chgrid-vhost-snippet.conf.

Key Paths

• Client version: client/public/version.js
• Client sounds: client/public/sounds/
• Server config template: server/config.example.toml
• Server runtime items: server/runtime/items.json

Documentation

• Controls/keymap: docs/controls.md
• Audio architecture and layers: docs/audio-architecture.md
• Item behavior by type: docs/item-types.md
• Runtime lifecycle flow: docs/runtime-flow.md
• Protocol behavior notes: docs/protocol-notes.md
• Item schema reference: docs/item-schema.md
• Local dev commands: docs/local.md

Contributing

Contributions and ideas are welcome. The grid is already home to several rather absurd ideas, and yours may fit right in. Please look over the docs and other files for guidance, or ask for help.

Notes on AI Coding

This project has been largely coded using AI tools, with a lot of human prompting and hand-holding to enforce best practices. All ideas for improving the project or its design are welcome.

License

• MIT This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.