Vine Desktop

Native C terminal chat over the Bloom Protocol mesh, powered by libtrellis. Uses ncurses for the TUI and links directly against the C core library.

See also: vine-web for the TypeScript/ink version.

Building

Built automatically as part of the Trellis CMake project:

cd trellis
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j$(nproc)

The binary is at build/apps/vine-desktop/vine-desktop.

Prerequisites

• libtrellis (built from parent project)
• ncurses (apt install libncurses-dev)

Usage

# Start with defaults
./vine-desktop

# Connect to a seed node with an alias
./vine-desktop -a alice -s tcp://seed.example.com:9100

# Auto-join gardens
./vine-desktop -a bob -s tcp://10.0.0.1:9100 -j lobby -j random

# Use onion routing with HTTPS disguise
./vine-desktop -r onion -d https

Commands

Command	IRC Equivalent	Description
/alias <name>	/nick	Set display name
/join <garden>	/join	Subscribe to a garden
/part [garden]	/part	Leave a garden
/msg <target> <text>	/privmsg	Send message
/query <user>	---	Open direct message
/topic <text>	/topic	Set garden topic
/kick <user>	/kick	Remove user
/mode <user> <perm>	/mode	Set permission
/whois <user>	/whois	Lookup identity
/list	/list	Discover gardens
/disguise <mode>	---	Switch morph disguise (https/http2/dns/ws/raw)
/routing <mode>	---	Switch routing (direct/relay/multipath/onion)
/peers	---	Show connected peers
/info	---	Show identity and mesh stats
/help	---	Show command list
/quit	/quit	Exit

Testing

The vine-desktop tests are built alongside the main project and run via CTest. They exercise core logic without requiring ncurses:

cd trellis/build && ctest --output-on-failure -R vine

Test binary	What's tested
vine_test_commands	Command parser (/alias, /join, /msg, etc.)
vine_test_chat	Chat state, garden buffers, ring buffer wraparound, thread safety
vine_test_config	CLI argument parsing (--alias, --seed, --join, etc.)

CLI Options

Flag	Long	Description
-a	--alias	Display name
-s	--seed	Seed node address (e.g. tcp://host:9100)
-l	--listen	Listen address (default: 0.0.0.0:9100)
-d	--disguise	Morph disguise: https, http2, dns, ws, raw
-r	--routing	Routing mode: direct, relay, multipath, onion
-j	--join	Garden to auto-join (repeatable)
-h	--help	Show help