Hermes — messaging by on-chain name

What ships today

Hermes is live inside the Theseus desktop browser and as a web messenger at hermes.x/messenger. Core messaging, sign-in, profiles and the address book work end to end. Mobile and Tor transport follow.

live

Threaded chat

Contact list on the left with search and unread badges, the selected conversation on the right with bubbles and inline reply. Enter to send, Shift-Enter for a new line.

live

Send and receive by name

Type alice.x. The client resolves the name on-chain, wraps the message NIP-17 to the recipient's Nostr key and publishes to their declared relays. Sealed-sender: the relay never sees who sent what to whom.

live

Three ways to sign in

Open with Theseus ID (the browser's own identity), a name and password, or a seed phrase (12 or 24 words, or an nsec). You stay signed in on the device; a new device needs the seed phrase.

live

Handles the way you like them

One identity, three spellings: hermes:alice, alice.x, or the email form. Paste any of them; pick which one the client shows in Settings.

live

Profiles

Display name, picture and a short bio as a standard Nostr profile, so other clients see them too. Non-unique and display-only; the name is the identity.

live

Address book and vCard import

Named contacts stored locally, with optional vCard import from an existing address book. You preview who gets added; nothing is uploaded.

live · opt-in

Phone discovery

Link a phone number and let contacts who know it find you. Off unless you turn it on; lookups work the other way too, by number.

live

History on your device

Messages persist to disk per identity. Close and reopen the panel and your threads are still there, unread marks included. Seed backup lives behind your password.

live

Hermes for Windows

The messenger as a stand-alone desktop app, installer or MSI, for machines without Theseus. Byte-equal with the Theseus panel; sign in with the same recovery phrase.

preview

Web messenger

The same panel wrapped as a stand-alone web app at hermes.x/messenger, for anyone without the desktop browser. Same crypto, same identity, signs in with an nsec or a mnemonic.

live

Hermes for Android

A native app (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose) with the same identity and wire format as the desktop and web clients: one inbox on every surface. Background delivery, in-app auto-update verified against the release manifest, find people by phone number.

planned

Tor transport

Relay traffic over the Tor client Theseus already runs, so even your connection IP leaves the relay. The UI will say when it is on.

Download

Alpha software on a test network. Check the SHA-256 before you install; that check is the real one. Every hash and every older build is on the releases page.

Android 8.0+

Hermes for Android 0.3.0

Self-signed release key, in-app auto-update.

Download APK

SHA-256 77d16184ba2c26fb81b79d9e4c5f98f8bfb434690c1e6acd9b7fd5f16651a6cb

Signing key b1e4685a7476fcbb3b53d807e298dea2ef2c7375f240cf04847d3d712cab95b7

Windows 64-bit

Hermes for Windows 0.1.0

Unsigned build; Windows will warn about an unrecognized app.

Installer MSI

Hermes-0.1.0-setup.exe 0adc742d54daaee2b62e7fdcbff2f0203bd50f995444487ff93233ccc6328552

Hermes-0.1.0.msi fa81948bba8c3d6e9306a5aa218424fd2a4bc692891f3d2543c2782207f86b3f

no install

In Theseus, or in any browser

Theseus ships Hermes as a bundled add-on: open the Hermes icon in the left sidebar or press Ctrl+Shift+E. Without Theseus, the web messenger at hermes.x/messenger runs in any browser; sign in with a recovery phrase.

The one idea that makes this different

Every existing Nostr client has the same wart: identity is npub1q8s7f3k… gibberish. The human-name fix, NIP-05, resolves alice@example.com through a DNS domain and a web server. That is exactly the ICANN-plus-server chain Silent Mode exists to escape: decentralized messaging bolted onto centralized identity.

The Hermes pitch.
alice.x publishes her Nostr pubkey as an on-chain record. Her name certificate is her verified, seizure-resistant identity. Message anyone by their on-chain registered name, with no phone number, no email, no ICANN, no company, and no server that can delete your account.

How it works

Your name owns your key. Register any name on the chain, or reuse one you already own, and publish your Nostr pubkey to it as an np record. The key is derived from the same wallet seed as the name, so one seed backs both.
Find people by name. Type bob.x. The client resolves it against the chain, pulls np (Nostr pubkey) and nr (preferred relays). No directory server involved.
Send the message sealed. NIP-17 gift-wrapped DMs: the relay sees neither sender nor content, only that a wrap addressed to some pubkey exists. Route over Tor to also hide your IP.
The name shows, not the pubkey. Incoming messages reverse-resolve pubkey to name where possible, so your chat list looks like a normal chat list rather than a wall of hex.

Getting a name

Today a Hermes identity is any on-chain registered name, such as one under .x from Sirius. Two more paths are designed and wait for the mainnet launch, when the Hermes top-level domains get minted.

today

Your own on-chain name

Register alice.x at Sirius, publish the Nostr pubkey to it, sign in to Hermes with the same seed. One transaction, yours for good.

designed

Free sub-identity

A name under the Hermes parent, issued through its signed-records manifest on Sia with no chain fee, for people who have no Bitcoin Cash on hand. Promote it to a sovereign name later from Settings in one transaction; the chain wins once both exist.

designed

Hermes TLDs

A short Hermes TLD for the dotted form and a second one for the email form, both minted on mainnet rather than the test network. The client already parses all three spellings, so the switch is a configuration change.

Where it lives

live

In Theseus desktop

A Messages panel in the left sidebar of the browser you already have. Reuses the built-in wallet's seed as the messaging identity.

preview

In any browser

hermes.x/messenger, served from the name itself over Sia. Sign in with a seed phrase; history stays in that browser's storage.

live

On Android and Windows

Native apps with the same seed and the same identity, so you can message from any device. Ariadne for Android also opens hermes.x from its menu.

Where your history lives

Three modes, one toggle. The default assumes no cloud at all; every later option is opt-in, and none of them let anyone but you read your messages.

default

Local only

The client keeps your message history on the device. Nothing else knows it exists. The same seed on two devices gives two-device redundancy; lose both and history is gone. Signal's model, on purpose.

designed

Silent Mode cloud backup

Toggle on and the client encrypts your history with a key derived from your wallet seed, then backs it up to the Sia network. Only you can read it. Text only, no media.

designed

Your own Sia account

Prefer to own the storage? Hermes sets up your own Sia account and routes backups there instead. Same encryption, and media backup becomes possible.

Honest boundaries

Messaging, not email

No Gmail interop, by design. A separate anonymous-mailbox product covers signing up on services without leaking a real address.

Metadata resistance is good, not perfect

NIP-17 hides sender and content from relays. Relays still see the recipient pubkey, timing, and your connection IP until Tor transport lands.

Relays are Nostr's soft spot

A message lives only while some relay keeps it. Silent Mode runs one relay and writes to a few public relays for reach and redundancy.

Design documents. The protocol design is in Hermes/DESIGN-hermes.md, the Android plan in DESIGN-mobile-hermes.md, and the free sub-identity scheme in DESIGN-sub-identity-manifest.md, the mail gateway (hello@theseus.x and the .silentmode.st bridge) in DESIGN-mail-gateway.md, all in the same folder. The desktop client ships as a bundled Theseus add-on and updates on its own channel, independent of browser releases.