Herkos Local Relay
In development: it cannot be downloaded yet.
Herkos Local Relay is a Nostr relay that runs on your own device. The Herkos apps, and any other Nostr client, connect to it at ws://127.0.0.1:4873: they read and write there first, even without a connection, and the relay takes care of the network.
It keeps your events in an encrypted database whose key stays in the system's secure storage. What you publish waits in an outbox and goes to your own relays (NIP-65) when there is a network, retried until each relay confirms it. What is private never leaves the device.
The honest part
Any app on this device can reach 127.0.0.1, so a web page or an app has to be paired before it can write, and private events are only given to whoever proves the key they belong to (NIP-42). Private events live only here: if you lose the device without a backup, they are gone, while what is on other relays comes back with the next sync. Deleting on Nostr is a request (NIP-09): other relays may keep a copy.
What it does
- An outbox that waits for the network, sends to your write relays and retries for days without losing anything
- Gift wraps (NIP-59) go only to the recipient's inbox relays, after a random delay, never to yours
- Public, private and ephemeral events, as each app declares them; you can change every class
- Fast sync with other relays using negentropy (NIP-77), and the classic way with others
- COUNT (NIP-45) and expiring events (NIP-40)
- Pruning by age or by space that never removes your own events
- An encrypted copy of the whole store, with a password of its own, and an export in plain JSONL that strfry and other relays read
- A local network for your other devices, off by default: only the keys you allow, over TLS
Yours to check and to change
- Free software under the MIT licence: Android, Windows and Linux
- 25 languages
- No ads, no trackers, no statistics, and no log of who connects unless you turn it on
- On Android, a notification while it runs, with a Stop button; on the desktop, an icon in the tray
- The relay's document (NIP-11) does not name you
Herkos comes from the Greek ἕρκος, "the fence that guards".