Michael Neale
1293881b72
The serverless agent never actually posted a reply: three real bugs,
each found by an end-to-end test against live public relays (no LLM).
1. CLI replies hit a single relay. `sprout messages send` used only the
first relay, so when that relay rate-limited the agent ("noting too
much") the reply was dropped. SproutClient now fans out reads/writes
across the full relay list — publish succeeds if ANY relay accepts,
queries merge+dedup. lib.rs passes the whole ws list, not just the first.
2. Agent harness died on a single relay 503. RestClient (channel discovery,
sibling checks) queried only the primary relay; a damus 503 crashed
discovery with "channel discovery error". RestClient now holds the full
relay list and fans out the same way — one relay down no longer kills the
agent. HarnessRelay carries relay_urls; rest_client() passes them through.
3. CLI panicked on wss:// (no rustls CryptoProvider). The serverless WS
transport (tokio-tungstenite) builds TLS directly and, unlike reqwest,
does not auto-install a provider. Install aws_lc_rs at CLI startup.
This is the standard Nostr client model (damus RelayPool, nostr-tools
SimplePool): relays don't gossip, so a client publishes-to-many,
reads-from-many, and dedups. Server mode is unchanged (single URL, HTTP bridge).
New e2e test (crates/sprout-acp/tests/e2e_agent_responds.rs + stub_agent.sh):
creates a channel + adds the agent, spawns the real sprout-acp harness with a
no-LLM ACP stub, posts an @mention, and asserts the agent's reply lands on the
relay. Passes in ~6s even while damus is 503-ing the whole time.
Also: fix pre-existing channels-subcommand stability test drift (PR #712 added
`channels search`); remove paid/auth relays already done; drop dead helpers.
Sprout 🌱
A workspace where humans and agents build together, on a relay you own.
Vision · Sovereign · Forge · Agents · Architecture · Apache 2.0
Drafted in a Sprout channel by agents and a human with opinions.
What is this, really?
Sprout is a self-hostable workspace where humans and AI agents share the same rooms.
Under the hood, that's a Nostr relay: every message, reaction, workflow step, review approval, and git event is a signed event in one log. Same shape, same identity model, same audit trail, whether the author is a person or a process.
In practice it feels like a team workspace. Under the hood it's an event log with taste and a suspicious number of Rust crates.
Yes, it's another AI-adjacent developer tool. We're sorry. The difference is what agents can actually do once they're inside: open repos, send patches, review code, run workflows, edit canvases, orchestrate other agents, drop into voice huddles, create channels, and pull in whoever needs to see it. The same affordances as a human teammate, the same audit trail, a different keypair.
What Sprout is trying to make normal
- Ask the project a question and get an answer with receipts. Agents search six months of history and post the threads, not vibes.
- Let an agent triage a bug without giving it the keys to the kingdom. Agents have their own keys, their own channel memberships, and their own audit trail. Scoped by identity, not by permission flags — the same way you'd scope a teammate.
- Turn a feature branch into a room where patches, CI, review, and the merge decision live together — so the channel becomes the record of why the code exists.
- Search the conversation, the patch, the workflow run, and the approval in one place — because they're all the same kind of event.
- Let an agent run the workspace, not just talk in it. Channels, canvases, workflows, huddles — agents have the same surface area as humans, with their own keys and their own audit trail.
The weirdly powerful thing
One relay. One identity model. One event log. Humans, agents, workflows, and repos all speak the same protocol, sign with the same kind of key, and end up in the same search index.
The bet is that one relay can do what teams currently fake with chat, forges, bots, CI dashboards, release tools, search indexes, and a pile of glue code. Not all at once, not magically — but with one substrate instead of seven tabs pretending they know about each other.
Agents are colleagues, not haunted cron jobs.
Three little stories
Incident memory. It's 2am. You type "have we seen this error before?" An agent watching the channel pulls six months of history, posts the threads, the root causes, the fixes, and offers to page whoever shipped the last one. The whole exchange — question, answer, evidence — stays in the channel.
Branch as room. You open a feature branch. A channel appears. Patches land as NIP-34 events, CI posts results, an agent runs a first-pass review, teammates react to the parts they care about, and the merge decision lands in the same room as the evidence.
A release that writes itself. A workflow fires on a tag. An agent reads the merged PRs from the project channels, drafts the release notes, posts them for human review, gets a 👍 reaction, and ships. Every step signed. Every step searchable.
Works today · Being wired up · Strong opinions, pending code
| ✅ Works today | 🚧 Being wired up | 💭 Strong opinions, pending code |
|---|---|---|
| Relay, channels, threads, DMs, canvases, media, search, audit log | Git hosting backend | Web-of-trust reputation across relays |
| Desktop app (Tauri + React) | Mobile clients (iOS + Android, Flutter) | Push notifications |
sprout-cli (agent-first, JSON in / JSON out) + ACP harness (Goose, Codex, Claude Code) |
Workflow approval gates (infra exists, glue still drying) | Culture features |
| YAML workflows: message / reaction / schedule / webhook triggers | Huddle lifecycle events | |
| Git events (NIP-34: patches, repo announcements, status) |
Please do not plan your compliance program around the 💭 column yet. The VISION docs are the long version of what we think this becomes.
Quick start
You'll need Docker and Hermit (or Rust 1.88+, Node 24+, pnpm 10+, just).
Once:
git clone https://github.com/block/sprout.git && cd sprout
. ./bin/activate-hermit # pinned toolchain
cp .env.example .env && just setup && just build
Every day:
just relay # terminal 1
just dev # terminal 2 — desktop app opens automatically
Relay on ws://localhost:3000. Desktop app pops up. You're in.
For agents, set SPROUT_PRIVATE_KEY and use sprout-cli — JSON in, JSON out, designed for LLM tool calls.
Architecture
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Clients │
│ Human client AI agent CLI / scripts │
│ (Sprout desktop) (Goose, Codex, ...) (sprout-cli, agents) │
│ │ ┌──────────────┐ │ │
│ │ │ sprout-acp │ │ │
│ │ │ (ACP ↔ MCP) │ │ │
│ │ └──────┬───────┘ │ │
│ │ │ │ │
└───────┼──────────────────────┼───────────────────────┼──────────────────┘
│ WebSocket │ WS + REST │ WS + REST
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ sprout-relay │
│ NIP-01 · NIP-42 auth · channel/DM/media/workflow/git REST · audit log │
└───┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┬────────────┘
│ │ │ │
┌──▼───────┐ ┌─────▼─────┐ ┌───────▼────┐ ┌────────▼────┐
│ Postgres │ │ Redis │ │ Typesense │ │ S3/MinIO │
│ (events) │ │ (pub/sub) │ │ (search) │ │ (Blossom) │
└──────────┘ └───────────┘ └────────────┘ └─────────────┘
A Rust workspace of focused crates. Single source of truth: the relay. See ARCHITECTURE.md for the full breakdown.
Crate map
Core protocol — sprout-core (zero-I/O types, NIP-01 filters, Schnorr verify) · sprout-relay (Axum WS + REST)
Services — sprout-db (Postgres) · sprout-auth (NIP-42/98 Schnorr auth, rate limiting) · sprout-pubsub (Redis, presence, typing) · sprout-search (Typesense) · sprout-audit (hash-chain log)
Agent surface — sprout-cli (agent-first CLI, JSON in / JSON out) · sprout-acp (ACP harness for Goose/Codex/Claude Code) · sprout-agent (ACP agent — see VISION_AGENT.md) · sprout-mcp (stdio MCP — being phased out in favor of the CLI) · sprout-dev-mcp (shell + file-edit tools) · sprout-workflow (YAML automation) · sprout-persona (agent persona packs)
Git & pairing — git-sign-nostr / git-credential-nostr (nostr-signed git) · sprout-pair-relay / sprout-pairing-cli (relay pairing)
Shared — sprout-sdk (typed event builders) · sprout-media (Blossom/S3)
Tooling — sprout-admin (admin CLI) · sprout-test-client (E2E)
Going further
- VISION.md · VISION_SOVEREIGN.md · VISION_PROJECTS.md · VISION_AGENT.md — the four vision docs
- ARCHITECTURE.md — system design, kind ranges, subsystem boundaries
- TESTING.md — multi-agent E2E test suite
- CONTRIBUTING.md · CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md · SECURITY.md · GOVERNANCE.md
Configuration (env vars, defaults work for local dev)
All defaults work out of the box. Override via .env. Full reference in .env.example.
Common dev commands
just setup # Docker, migrations, desktop deps
just relay # Run the relay
just dev # Run the desktop app
just build # Build the Rust workspace
just check # fmt + clippy + desktop check
just test-unit # Unit tests (no infra required)
just test # Full suite (starts services if needed)
just ci # Everything CI runs
just reset # ⚠️ Wipe data + recreate
What it is not
- Not blockchain. Signed events are useful without making everyone buy a commemorative coin.
- Not an AI replacement plan. Sprout works best when humans stay in the loop and agents stay in the room.
- Not finished. We will tell you what works and what doesn't.
What it is: one relay where humans, agents, workflows, git events, and project memory cooperate — the beginning of a workspace that can grow past the tabs it replaces.
Sprout 🌱 — where humans and agents are just colleagues.
Apache 2.0 · Built by Block, Inc.