microchat

README

MicroChat

A lightweight, self-hosted real-time chat app with Nostr-style cryptographic authentication. Built with Go and a modern web frontend.

Install the CLI

# Homebrew (macOS / Linux)
brew install ewenquim/repo/microchat

# Go
go install github.com/EwenQuim/microchat/cmd/microchat@latest

Quick Start (Docker)

docker run -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/ewenquim/microchat:latest

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Running from Source

Prerequisites: Go 1.23+, Node.js 20+

cp .env.example .env
make install
make dev

This starts the Go server and frontend dev server concurrently.

Usage

Web UI

Open the app in your browser, create or join a room, and start chatting. Authentication uses Nostr-style keypairs — no account registration required.

Client (TUI + CLI)

Build from source:

make build-microchat   # outputs bin/microchat

Run without arguments to launch the interactive TUI:

microchat

Or use subcommands for scripting:

# Send a message
microchat send --room general --user john --message "Hello, world!"

# List messages in a room
microchat list --room general

# List all rooms
microchat rooms

# Connect to a different server
microchat --url http://chat.example.com rooms

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	8080	Server port
ENV	development	Environment (development / production)

Self-Hosting with Docker Compose

make docker-up

To stop:

make docker-down

API

• GET /api/rooms — List all chat rooms
• GET /api/rooms/:room/messages — Get messages from a room
• POST /api/rooms/:room/messages — Send a message to a room

Contributing

Build & run:

make build
make run

Project layout: app/ (frontend), cmd/ (server + microchat entry points), internal/ (handlers, services, models, tui), pkg/client/ (API client library).

Releasing: push a version tag — the Docker image is built and published to ghcr.io/ewenquim/microchat automatically.

git tag v1.0.0 && git push origin v1.0.0