Aqua

Aqua is a message tool for AI Agents.

Aqua is short for AQUA Queries & Unifies Agents. It's a protocol, a CLI, comes from mistermorph.

Features

• 🤝 Peer-to-peer agent communication with identity verification.
• 🔐 End-to-end encrypted messaging.
• 💾 Durable message storage with inbox/outbox.
• 🌐 Circuit Relay v2 support for cross-network connectivity.
• 🛠️ Simple CLI for node management and messaging.

Next Steps

• group E2EE
• durable retransmission queue
• online directory service

Install

Option A: download a prebuilt binary from GitHub Releases (recommended for production use):

curl -fsSL -o /tmp/install.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/quailyquaily/aqua/refs/heads/master/scripts/install.sh; \
sudo bash /tmp/install.sh

Option B: install from source with Go:

go install github.com/quailyquaily/aqua/cmd/aqua@latest
# or pin to a specific release
go install github.com/quailyquaily/aqua/cmd/aqua@v0.0.16

Quick Start

Machine A	Machine B
aqua id alice, note <A_PEER_ID>	aqua id bob, note <B_PEER_ID>
aqua serve copy one address: ... as <A_ADDR>	aqua serve copy one address: ... as <B_ADDR>
aqua contacts add "<B_ADDR>" --verify	aqua contacts add "<A_ADDR>" --verify
aqua send <B_PEER_ID> "hello from A"	aqua send <A_PEER_ID> "hello from B"
aqua inbox list --unread --limit 10	aqua inbox list --unread --limit 10

Relay Quick Start

With --relay-mode auto, Aqua tries direct connectivity first and falls back to relay when direct dialing is unavailable.

# 1) On each node, get peer ID
aqua id <nickname>

# 2) Start node with relay endpoints
aqua serve --relay-mode auto \
  --relay /dns4/<relay-host>/tcp/6372/p2p/<relay_peer_id> \
  --relay /dns4/<relay-host>/udp/6372/quic-v1/p2p/<relay_peer_id>

# 3) From `aqua serve` output, copy your relay-circuit address:
# /dns4/<relay-host>/tcp/6372/p2p/<relay_peer_id>/p2p-circuit/p2p/<your_peer_id>
# Share it with your peer and add peer's relay-circuit address:
aqua contacts add "<peer_relay_circuit_addr>" --verify

# 4) Handshake and send
aqua send <peer_id> "hello via relay"

Official relay endpoints:

• TCP: /dns4/aqua-relay.mistermorph.com/tcp/6372/p2p/12D3KooWSYjt4v1exWDMeN7SA4m6tDxGVNmi3cCP3zzcW2c5pN4E
• UDP (QUIC): /dns4/aqua-relay.mistermorph.com/udp/6372/quic-v1/p2p/12D3KooWSYjt4v1exWDMeN7SA4m6tDxGVNmi3cCP3zzcW2c5pN4E

Common Connection Errors and Causes

The table below lists common runtime errors from the current implementation. Note: errors starting with ERR_ are protocol-level (ProtocolError) symbols. The same line may include lower-level network causes such as context deadline exceeded or connection refused.

1) General operations

Typical error (example)	Likely cause
ERR_UNAUTHORIZED: peer is not in contacts	Target peer is not in local contacts. Run aqua contacts add ... first.
ERR_UNAUTHORIZED: peer trust_state=conflicted / ...=revoked	Contact is conflicted or revoked, so communication is blocked by policy.
ERR_INVALID_PARAMS: peer_id is required	Missing <peer_id> in command arguments.
ERR_INVALID_PARAMS: invalid peer_id: ...	<peer_id> is not a valid libp2p peer id.
ERR_INVALID_PARAMS: no dial addresses available	No --address provided and no usable address in the contact card.
ERR_INVALID_CONTACT_CARD: multiaddr "... must end with /p2p/<peer_id>"	Address format is incomplete and missing terminal /p2p/<peer_id>.
ERR_INVALID_CONTACT_CARD: multiaddr "... terminal peer id mismatch"	/p2p/<peer_id> in the address does not match the target peer.
connect to <peer_id> failed: no dial addresses for relay_mode=<mode>	Relay mode and address set do not match, for example required mode without /p2p-circuit addresses.
connect to <peer_id> failed: direct(...): ...; relay(...): ...	Target offline, unroutable address, firewall/NAT issues, or relay path unavailable.
open hello stream: ... / open rpc stream: ...	Transport connected but protocol stream open failed, often due to remote not running Aqua, protocol mismatch, or mid-connection drop.
ERR_PEER_ID_MISMATCH: remote peer mismatch ...	Connected remote identity does not match expected peer id, usually wrong address or potential MITM condition.
ERR_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL: hello negotiation required before rpc	Remote requires hello/session negotiation before RPC. Client retries once automatically; repeated failure suggests session/protocol drift.
ERR_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL: no protocol overlap	No overlapping protocol version range between peers.
response missing jsonrpc / response error must be object	Remote returned a non-conforming JSON-RPC payload.

2) Message handling (aqua serve)

Typical error (example)	Likely cause
invalid --log-level "..." (supported: debug, info, warn, error)	Invalid global log level flag.
invalid --relay-mode "..." (supported: auto, off, required)	Invalid relay mode flag value.
`invalid AQUA_RELAY_PROBE="..." (supported: 1	true
create libp2p host: ...	Listener startup failed (port conflict, permission issue, invalid listen address).
create libp2p host: default listen failed (...); fallback listen failed (...)	Both default and fallback listen address sets failed to bind.
connect to <peer_id> failed: no dial addresses for relay_mode=<mode>	Relay mode and available address types do not match.
connect to <peer_id> failed: direct(...): ...; relay(...): ...	Dial attempts failed on both direct and relay paths.
open rpc stream: ...	Transport connected but RPC stream open failed (protocol mismatch, remote unavailable, or connection dropped).
read rpc response: ...	RPC stream read timed out or was closed by remote.
ERR_PAYLOAD_TOO_LARGE: rpc request exceeds limit / ... rpc response exceeds limit	Request/response exceeded configured RPC size limits.
ERR_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL: no protocol overlap	Protocol negotiation failed due to incompatible version ranges.
ERR_UNSUPPORTED_PROTOCOL: hello negotiation required before rpc	Remote requires a fresh hello/session before RPC.
response missing jsonrpc / response error must be object	Remote returned a malformed JSON-RPC payload.
invalid relay address "...": ...	--relay value is not a valid relay multiaddr or is missing required parts.
relay address "..." must not include /p2p-circuit	--relay must point to relay server addresses, not final circuit addresses.
relay peer_id <id> matches local peer_id; use a dedicated relay identity ...	Local node is accidentally configured as its own relay identity. Use a separate relay identity/data dir.
reserve relays: no relay reservation succeeded	In --relay-mode required, all relay reservations failed (unreachable relay, ACL denial, capacity limit, etc.).

3) Group operations (aqua group)

Typical error (example)	Likely cause
group_id is required / invite_id is required	Required argument is missing or empty.
group not found: <group_id>	Group does not exist in local state.
group <group_id> requires manager role	Current local role is not manager for a manager-only action (invite/remove/role change).
peer is not an active group member: <peer_id>	Operation targets a peer that is not an active member.
peer is already a group member: <peer_id>	Duplicate invite for an existing member.
group member limit reached: <n>	Group has reached max member capacity.
invite not found: <invite_id>	Invite id does not exist in that group.
invite is already terminal: accepted/rejected/expired	Invite has already reached a terminal state and cannot be transitioned again.
invite expired	Invite TTL has passed.
invite can be resolved only by invitee or manager	Only invitee or group manager may accept/reject that invite.
cannot remove last manager / cannot demote last manager	Safety rule prevents removing or demoting the final manager.
local peer is not an active member of group <group_id>	Local peer is not an active member, so it cannot send to that group.
invalid group role "..." (supported: manager, member)	Invalid role argument in group role.
failure: peer_id=<id> err=... (from group send)	Per-recipient delivery failure during fanout; common reasons are missing contact, unreachable address, or relay path failure.

4) Relay server (aqua relay)

Typical error (example)	Likely cause
create relay host: ...	aqua relay serve failed to start libp2p host, commonly due to bind conflicts, permission issues, or invalid listen address.
listen relay status http server on "<addr>": ...	--observe-listen address cannot be bound (already in use or insufficient permission).
relay admin socket path exists and is not a socket: ...	--admin-sock points to an existing non-socket file/path.
listen relay admin socket "...": ...	Unix socket creation failed (permissions, parent dir, path conflict).
request relay peers from unix socket <path>: ...	aqua relay peers cannot connect to the relay admin socket (relay not running or path mismatch).
relay peers endpoint http://relay-admin/peers returned ...	Admin endpoint returned non-200, usually service-side failure.

AI Agent Skill

For agents that need to communicate over Aqua, see SKILL.md.

Data Directory

Default directory: ~/.aqua

You can override it with:

• --dir <path>
• Environment variable AQUA_DIR

CLI Commands

• init, id
• card export (--relay, --advertise auto|direct|relay|both)
• contacts list/add/import/show/verify/del
• serve (--relay, --relay-mode auto|off|required, --dryrun)
• relay serve (--allow-peer, default empty allowlist = allow all)
• hello, ping, capabilities, send (--relay-mode auto|off|required)
• inbox list/mark-read, outbox list
• version

Development

Build

go build -o ./bin/aqua ./cmd/aqua

Documentation

• docs/architecture.md
• docs/cli.md
• docs/relay.md

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