Users can now sign in with name + password on a device that has never seen the
account by opting into a cloud backup at account creation. The seed phrase is
locally re-wrapped with scrypt + AES-GCM keyed by the password and published
as a NIP-78 kind:30078 event under d-tag `hermes.backup.v1/<sha256(name)>`.
Relays only ever see opaque ciphertext; the password is the only decryption
key, so backup strength is password strength.
Signin tries the local wrap first (fast, no network) and falls back to the
cloud copy if the device hasn't been used before. Settings → Backup now has
"Back up to cloud" / "Re-upload" / "Remove cloud backup" controls that reuse
the Reveal-seed password field as the key.
Site: added @media breakpoints to shared.css so the header collapses cleanly
on narrow screens (icon-only brand under 380px, hidden "Sign in" label under
640px), the hero mark drops to 84px, h1 scales down, and buttons shrink to
touch sizes. Also fixed a stale reference to the removed `mnemonicBox` id in
the Create-account toggle that was throwing a TypeError on mobile.
Users can link one or more phone numbers to their Hermes identity by
publishing a kind:30078 claim event whose d-tag is a SHA-256 hash of the
E.164 number. The number itself never leaves the device. Add-contact and
message-send now also accept a +phone input directly — the client hashes it
and queries relays for the matching Hermes identity.
- lib/hermes.js: normalisePhone(str) strips separators + a leading 00
into E.164, rejects anything that doesn't fit +[country][7-15 digits].
hashPhone(str) → base64url-truncated-to-32 SHA-256 digest, used as the
d-tag suffix under PHONE_DTAG_PREFIX. buildPhoneClaimEvent /
buildPhoneRetractEvent emit the signed kind:30078 / NIP-09 kind:5.
- main.js: _hermesAPI.getPhone / setPhone / clearPhone / findByPhones.
Plaintext phone persists in the identity meta (locally only) so the
user can see what's linked and retract it; event ids are kept so a
retract can reference the exact wire event. hermesResolveTo takes a
phone-shaped input and does the discovery lookup transparently, so
contactsAdd and send accept phones without a new entry point.
- panel.html: Settings → Phone discovery (link / unlink + privacy note),
add-contact placeholder now lists +phone alongside the other forms.
Privacy stance stated in the UI: "anyone who already knows your number
can find you — same tradeoff as number-based messengers." No PSI tricks
yet; plain hash. Users who don't want it just don't link, which is the
default. Future slice can add a pepper if operators want to narrow the
brute-force window.
Peers' chat-list labels now cascade: contact nickname → kind:0 display name →
BNS handle → pk preview. Avatars render as a URL picture when kind:0 carries
one, with initials as fallback. Profiles are fetched on demand (background,
non-blocking) when a new peer pk shows up in the inbox or contact list, and
cached on disk so a cold start renders instantly.
- lib/hermes.js: buildProfileEvent({sk, displayName, picture, about}) emits
a signed kind:0 with `name` + `display_name` set together (clients vary
on which they prefer). parseProfileContent(content) handles both.
- main.js: profile cache at <userData>/hermes/profiles.json; auto-fetch
from HERMES_DEFAULT_RELAYS with a 4 s per-relay cap. hermesPublishEvent
centralises relay publish (used by profile save; send() retains its
inlined copy for the DRY-up later). hermesRecord() kicks off a background
profile fetch the first time a peer is seen; result fires on the
hermes-profile bus event.
- main.js: _hermesAPI.updateProfile / getProfile. Addon proxies both.
- panel.html: Settings → Profile editor (display name, picture URL, about);
publishes on save, pre-fills from the cache. Picture validated as http(s).
labelFor() + avatarFor() centralise the display cascade. Profile state
lives in state.profiles.
Third signin option on the panel: enter a bare name + password, Hermes mints
a 12-word BIP-39 mnemonic locally, derives the Nostr key, password-wraps the
mnemonic for later Settings → Backup, and persists the sealed sk the same
way the other paths do. Save-forever still handles routine signin — the
password is only used to reveal the seed phrase and only from Settings.
- main.js: hermesWrapMnemonic / hermesUnwrapMnemonic via scrypt (N=2^15) +
aes-256-gcm. Wrapped blob at <userData>/hermes-identity/mnemonic.wrapped.json,
plaintext JSON — the wrap itself is the protection. On sign-out the blob
is nuked alongside the sealed sk.
- main.js: init() now takes { create: true, handle, password }. Handle is
validated (1-32 chars, kebab-friendly) and stored as `<name>.erm` so a
mainnet free-manifest reservation lands on the same canonical form later.
Mnemonic-path init optionally takes a password too — "promote this
seed-phrase session to a password-protected backup" in one step.
- main.js: new _hermesAPI.getBackup({password}) and .hasBackup. status() now
returns handle + source so the panel can label the restored session.
- panel.html: "Create a new account" button on signin reveals handle +
password + confirm. ⋯ menu adds Settings… showing account info, display
mode picker (hermes:alice / alice.erm / alice@hermes.tel — persisted via
silentmode.storage), and the gated seed-phrase reveal. Reveal lays words
out 12-across with 1-indexed numbering so a user copying to paper doesn't
miscount. Backup section hides for vault / mnemonic sessions.
Still off-chain only — handles created this way are local labels until the
mainnet mint of the free manifest lets us register them against the
`hermes.erm` signed-records store (see [[hermes-name-scheme-plan]]).
Panel + standalone window now accept all three handle forms as synonyms, and
the UI defaults to the hermes:alice scheme form. Signin is persistent across
restarts via safeStorage-sealed identity; the ⋯ menu adds Sign out.
- lib/hermes.js: parseHandle(input) → {kind, value} canonicalises any of
hermes:alice, alice.erm, alice.bch, alice@parent.tld, npub1…, or raw hex.
renderHandle(name, mode) formats a .erm name as hermes:alice (default),
alice.erm (dotted), or alice@hermes.tel (email). Non-.erm names always
render dotted so a .bch handle can't masquerade as a sub-identity.
- main.js: hermesResolveTo() unifies contacts-add + send + their panel-API
twins behind one path. Sub-identity (alice@parent.tld) resolution returns
a crisp "not available yet" until the mainnet mint of the parent name's
signed-records manifest lands — the parser accepts the form today so UI
copy and placeholders can show it.
- main.js: safeStorage-sealed identity at <userData>/hermes-identity/,
auto-restored on app ready. New _hermesAPI.signOut wipes it. init() takes
{ remember: false } for a one-shot session (default: persist). A
hermes-restored event fires on auto-restore so the panel skips the
signin screen.
- panel.html: renderHandle() mirror client-side; ⋯ menu with "Signed in as
hermes:alice" header + Sign out; placeholders show all three forms; the
signin hint tells users they stay signed in.
On-chain `.erm` and `hermes.tel` mints are deliberately deferred to mainnet
per user direction — the parser and display paths are tld-agnostic, so a
mainnet switch is one constant change in lib/hermes.js (HERMES_TLD /
HERMES_EMAIL_PARENT) plus the panel's mirror of them.
The sidebar panel used to be a launcher that opened the standalone Messages
window; now it IS the messenger — signin screen with "Open with Theseus ID"
(derives the Nostr key from the unlocked vault seed) or "Open an existing
account" (12/24-word mnemonic fallback), then a contacts + thread view with
a narrow-width single-column fallback. The ⧉ button still pops the standalone
window out, so the Ctrl+Shift+E flow keeps working.
- main.js: expose a global._hermesAPI with status/canUseVault/init/inbox/
send/markThreadRead/contacts* so the addon can proxy panel calls without
granting it ipcRenderer or crossing the HERMES_ONLY sender gate.
hermesEmit also fans out on an in-process __hermes_bus so the panel gets
live inbox/status pushes decoupled from hermesWin's lifetime.
- bundled-addons/hermes/index.js: proxies each allow-listed method onto
global._hermesAPI, forwards bus events to api.emit for the panel.
- panel.html: signin + app screens, mobile-style single column under 540px.
- Mark updated to the spread-wings variant: envelope sized up (34×22),
three tapered trails extending outside the viewBox so the wings don't
bunch at the back of the envelope at any size. Applied to the addon
icon (manifest base64), the panel header, both /hermes sites, and
site-hermes-x's favicon + mark SVGs.
New site-hermes-x/ — standalone .x site (own nav, own assets, own OG tags),
sibling to site-theseus-x and site-sirius-x. Internal nav stays on hermes.x:
Overview, Messenger (preview + UI mockup), Branding (brand kit). The only
cross-link is 'Get Theseus' pointing at theseus.x where appropriate.
Mark redesigned: tilted winged envelope with three tapered speed-trails on
the back-left (top longest, bottom shortest). Default colour sky #38BDF8 —
swappable via --sky in site-hermes-x/assets/shared.css. Alternate orange
palette documented but not applied by default. Mark propagated to:
- site-hermes-x/assets/mark.svg + mark-stroke.svg (16-20px variant)
- site/hermes/{index.html, branding/{index.html, mark.svg, mark-stroke.svg}}
- TheseusNavigator/bundled-addons/hermes/{addon.json, panel.html}
Theseus addon moves out of the top-right extensions dock and into the
left-strip sidebar: panels[].side = 'left' + registerSidebarPanel({side:'left'}).
Appears alongside Mail/Pithos/Telegram, excluded from rightPanels() so the
extensions dock no longer lists it. Verified via sidebarState() CDP query —
hermes:main is no longer in the right-panels list.
site/hermes/ (the nested silentmode.st/hermes page) also updated to the new
mark for consistency; both the sovereign hermes.x and the silentmode-nested
page now show the same winged envelope.
Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+M -> Ctrl+Shift+E. Chrome owns Ctrl+Shift+M as
'switch profile' and E matches the Greek spelling (Ermis).
Sidebar discoverability: new bundled add-on at bundled-addons/hermes/
registers a left-strip icon + launcher panel. The panel is a thin chrome
(mark + 'Open Messages' + shortcut hint) that forwards clicks through
api.onMessage -> ipcMain.emit('hermes-open-request') -> openHermesWindow.
All real messaging code stays in main.js — add-on is purely for discovery.
Address book: opt-in vCard (.vcf) import. Dialog in the Add Contact modal
lets the user pick a file; main.js parses BEGIN:VCARD blocks for X-BNS-NAME
/ X-NOSTR-NPUB / X-NOSTR-PUBKEY plus .bch names and npubs mentioned in
NOTE fields. Candidates are previewed per-contact with checkboxes; nothing
is added until the user confirms. Non-matching vCards are returned too (so
the user can still add manually) rather than silently dropped. Nothing is
uploaded; parsing is local.
site/hermes: status badge flipped from 'designed - not yet built' to
'MVP - desktop'. New 'What ships today' grid covers threaded chat, send by
name, address book, local history (all live) and mobile + Tor (next /
planned). Hero carries the new Ctrl+Shift+E shortcut and a link to
/hermes/branding.
site/hermes/branding: new page. Mark SVG (winged envelope, two variants
for 16-20px and 24-160px display sizes), palette (reuses Silent Mode
tokens + an amber accent that's distinctly warm-yellow, not Hermes-orange
— so it never collides with Hermès the fashion house), name explanation
(English Hermes / Greek Ermis), voice notes, do/don't table, MPL-2.0
attribution.
Hermes/MOBILE-RECOMMENDATION.md: analysis of three mobile paths (inside
Ariadne / standalone / hybrid). Recommendation is Option 1: ship as a
screen inside Ariadne. Reuses the wallet seed, aligns with the design
doc's 'one seed many purposes' architecture, lowest total cost.
