Document relay and messaging portability

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+# BitLogin Relay and Messaging Portability
+
+**Status:** Experimental design
+**Document version:** 0.1
+**Date:** July 22, 2026
+**Implementation status:** Partially planned in the core specification; not implemented as a complete user-facing system
+
+## 1. Summary
+
+BitLogin should make relay configuration and private-message synchronization
+portable, understandable, and recoverable across devices.
+
+The feature covers:
+
+- General relay preferences
+- DM inbox relay preferences
+- DM outbox and sent-message recovery
+- Relay role separation
+- Relay health and redundancy checks
+- Per-account message cursors and encrypted local indexes
+- Conversation reconstruction on a clean device
+
+The goal is not to invent a new messaging protocol. It is to provide one
+coherent account-level implementation that compatible applications can reuse.
+
+## 2. Motivation
+
+Nostr applications often implement relay selection and messaging independently.
+That creates several user-facing problems:
+
+- The same account behaves differently in different apps.
+- Users repeatedly configure the same relays.
+- Private messages may appear on one device but not another.
+- Sent messages may be missing after switching clients.
+- Users cannot easily tell which relays are used for public posts, DMs, vault
+  records, or discovery.
+- A single unavailable relay can silently make an account appear empty.
+
+BitLogin already has a portable identity and relay-backed recovery model. It is
+a natural place to normalize relay and messaging behavior for compatible apps.
+
+## 3. Relay roles
+
+BitLogin should distinguish relay roles instead of presenting one undifferentiated
+list.
+
+```text
+General relays
+  Public profile, follows, notes, and ordinary events
+
+DM inbox relays
+  Receive encrypted messages addressed to the user
+
+DM outbox relays
+  Store or discover sent-message copies and delivery records
+
+Discovery relays
+  Locate relay lists and other account bootstrap records
+
+Vault relays
+  Store BitLogin capsules and encrypted portable records
+
+Entitlement relays
+  Optional source for signed purchase and access records
+```
+
+A relay may serve more than one role, but the interface and internal state must
+record those roles explicitly.
+
+## 4. Canonical relay preferences
+
+The user's signed Nostr relay-list events remain the canonical public source for
+ordinary and DM relay preferences where standards define them.
+
+BitLogin should:
+
+1. Retrieve the latest valid signed relay-list events.
+2. Validate event signatures and timestamps.
+3. Merge them with local bootstrap and vault requirements without overwriting
+   unrelated user choices.
+4. Republish only when the user confirms a change or when a defined repair flow
+   is required.
+5. Preserve signed copies in encrypted recovery exports.
+
+BitLogin-specific relay roles that do not have a standard public event should be
+stored in encrypted, independently replaceable account records rather than the
+core capsules whenever practical.
+
+## 5. Relay settings interface
+
+Suggested interface:
+
+```text
+Relays
+
+Public activity
+  relay-one.example       Connected
+  relay-two.example       Slow
+
+Private messages
+  inbox-one.example       Connected
+  inbox-two.example       Unreachable
+
+BitLogin vault
+  vault-one.example       Healthy
+  vault-two.example       Healthy
+  vault-three.example     Healthy
+
+[Add relay] [Test all] [Advanced]
+```
+
+For each relay, show:
+
+- URL
+- Assigned roles
+- Connection status
+- Last successful read
+- Last successful write
+- Authentication requirement
+- Advertised limits when available
+- Whether it is user-selected, discovered, or a BitLogin bootstrap relay
+
+The interface should explain consequences in ordinary language, such as:
+
+> You currently have only one reachable private-message inbox relay. If it goes
+> offline, new messages may not reach this account until another inbox relay is
+> added.
+
+## 6. Relay health
+
+BitLogin may run lightweight health checks while the account is active.
+
+Checks may include:
+
+- WebSocket connection success
+- Read subscription success
+- Auth challenge handling
+- Write acknowledgement
+- Read-after-write verification for BitLogin-owned records
+- Advertised event-size limits
+- Last observed latency
+
+Health results are advisory and time-sensitive. A relay marked healthy can still
+lose events or become unavailable later.
+
+BitLogin must not continuously publish test events to public relays without user
+consent. Read-only checks should be preferred where possible.
+
+## 7. Messaging architecture
+
+Conceptual flow:
+
+```text
+Signed relay preferences
+        |
+        +-- DM inbox relay list
+        +-- general/outbox discovery
+        |
+BitLogin messaging synchronizer
+        +-- downloads encrypted incoming messages
+        +-- downloads sent-message copies
+        +-- validates and decrypts locally
+        +-- reconstructs conversations
+        `-- updates encrypted local index
+```
+
+Sensitive message plaintext must remain local to the active account session.
+
+## 8. Inbox synchronization
+
+The inbox synchronizer should:
+
+1. Determine the active account's current DM inbox relays.
+2. Open account-scoped relay connections.
+3. Fetch encrypted messages using persisted cursors and a bounded overlap window.
+4. Validate event IDs, signatures, wrappers, and recipient binding.
+5. Decrypt messages locally.
+6. Deduplicate copies received from several relays.
+7. Store an encrypted local message index.
+8. Advance cursors only after durable local processing.
+
+A message received from multiple relays is one logical message, not several
+conversation entries.
+
+## 9. Outbox and sent-message recovery
+
+A portable inbox alone is insufficient. Users expect messages they sent on one
+device to appear on another.
+
+BitLogin should support sent-message recovery through the applicable messaging
+protocol's sender-copy or outbox mechanism.
+
+The synchronizer should recover:
+
+- The sender's encrypted copy of outgoing messages
+- Delivery metadata required to reconstruct threads
+- Reactions or replies when supported
+- Message timestamps and event IDs
+
+BitLogin must not fabricate a sent-message history from recipient copies that the
+user cannot decrypt or verify.
+
+## 10. Conversation reconstruction
+
+The local conversation model should be derived from validated message events.
+
+Example internal record:
+
+```json
+{
+  "conversation_id": "derived-local-id",
+  "participants": ["<pubkey-a>", "<pubkey-b>"],
+  "last_message_at": 1784750000,
+  "unread_count": 2,
+  "message_ids": ["<event-id-1>", "<event-id-2>"]
+}
+```
+
+The local index is a cache and search aid. Signed encrypted events remain the
+portable source material.
+
+Conversation identifiers should not be published publicly unless required by a
+standard protocol.
+
+## 11. Local encrypted index
+
+The message index may include:
+
+- Event ID
+- Conversation membership
+- Sender and recipient pubkeys
+- Decrypted timestamp
+- Delivery status
+- Unread state
+- Search tokens or local full-text index
+- Relay source metadata
+
+The index must be encrypted at rest or protected within the established BitLogin
+session-storage model. It must be namespaced by account.
+
+Plaintext message bodies must never be included in analytics, logs, exceptions,
+or unencrypted browser storage.
+
+## 12. Read state and application interoperability
+
+Read/unread state is application data rather than cryptographic message truth.
+BitLogin may synchronize it as portable application state.
+
+Suggested records:
+
+```text
+messaging/read-cursor/<conversation-id>
+messaging/archive-state/<conversation-id>
+messaging/mute-state/<conversation-id>
+```
+
+Compatible apps may choose to use BitLogin's normalized state or keep their own.
+The user should be told when read state is device-local rather than portable.
+
+## 13. Application API
+
+Conceptual API:
+
+```javascript
+const relayConfig = await bitlogin.relays.getConfiguration();
+
+const conversations = await bitlogin.messaging.listConversations({
+  limit: 50
+});
+
+const messages = await bitlogin.messaging.getMessages({
+  conversationId: conversations[0].id,
+  limit: 100
+});
+
+await bitlogin.messaging.send({
+  recipients: ["<pubkey>"],
+  plaintext: "Hello"
+});
+```
+
+A host application should not need direct access to the everyday private key or
+raw decrypted index database.
+
+## 14. Permissions
+
+Suggested scopes:
+
+```text
+relays:read
+relays:manage
+messages:list
+messages:read
+messages:send
+messages:manage-state
+```
+
+A permission dialog should explain whether an app can:
+
+- See relay URLs
+- Read conversation metadata
+- Read message contents
+- Send messages as the user
+- Change relay preferences
+
+Reading relay configuration should not automatically grant access to private
+messages.
+
+## 15. Account switching
+
+Every relay connection, cursor, message index, and permission must be scoped to
+the active account.
+
+Switching accounts must:
+
+1. Stop or suspend subscriptions for the previous account.
+2. Clear previous-account plaintext from visible components.
+3. Activate the selected account's relay configuration.
+4. Open new account-scoped subscriptions.
+5. Switch to the selected account's encrypted message index.
+6. Notify host applications that all cached messaging objects are stale.
+
+The interface must never display one account's conversation while another
+account's signer is active.
+
+## 16. Recovery and clean-device behavior
+
+On a clean device, BitLogin should:
+
+1. Restore the everyday identity through the password or recovery path.
+2. Retrieve signed general and DM relay preferences.
+3. Restore BitLogin-specific encrypted relay-role records.
+4. Connect to the configured inbox and outbox sources.
+5. Download and validate encrypted messages.
+6. Rebuild the encrypted local index.
+7. Restore portable read state if enabled.
+
+The process may be incremental. The interface should distinguish:
+
+```text
+Account unlocked
+Relay settings restored
+Messages syncing
+Message history complete through <timestamp>
+```
+
+## 17. Export
+
+A full encrypted BitLogin export should include:
+
+- Latest signed relay-list events
+- BitLogin-specific encrypted relay-role records
+- Message events or a bounded encrypted message archive, according to user choice
+- Relay cursors
+- Encrypted local index metadata when useful
+- Portable read and archive state
+
+The export should state whether it contains message ciphertext only or decrypted
+message content. Decrypted export must require explicit confirmation.
+
+## 18. Failure handling
+
+BitLogin should surface specific conditions:
+
+- No reachable inbox relay
+- Relay authentication failed
+- Relay rejected event size
+- Conflicting relay-list events
+- Message decrypt failed
+- Invalid signature or wrapper
+- Cursor rollback or stale relay response
+- Outbox history incomplete
+
+The client should continue using healthy relays when one fails and should not
+silently discard a user's configured relay merely because it is temporarily
+offline.
+
+## 19. Privacy and security
+
+Relay use can reveal social relationships, timing, IP address, and account
+linkage even when message contents are encrypted.
+
+Implementations should:
+
+- Use separate connections for identity-capsule and everyday-identity traffic.
+- Avoid querying all account roles over one relay connection when separation is
+  practical.
+- Minimize unnecessary broad subscriptions.
+- Avoid transmitting plaintext message content outside the local client.
+- Keep per-account cursors isolated.
+- Validate all event signatures and wrappers before indexing.
+- Treat relay-provided metadata and limits as untrusted input.
+- Make Tor, VPN, proxy, or privacy-relay support possible in future clients.
+
+BitLogin cannot prevent network observers from correlating traffic from the same
+device or IP.
+
+## 20. Acceptance criteria
+
+The first complete relay and messaging layer is ready when:
+
+1. A user can view and manage relay roles in plain language.
+2. General and DM relay preferences restore on a clean device.
+3. Incoming encrypted messages synchronize from at least two relays.
+4. Duplicate relay copies appear as one logical message.
+5. Sent messages created on one device appear on another device.
+6. Conversation history can be rebuilt from signed encrypted events.
+7. Message and relay state remain isolated across account switching.
+8. Relay failures are visible and do not block healthy alternatives.
+9. App permissions distinguish relay access, message metadata, message content,
+   and sending authority.
+10. No plaintext messages are stored in logs or unencrypted analytics.
+
+## 21. Recommended implementation order
+
+1. Build the relay-role data model and dashboard.
+2. Complete signed relay-list restoration and safe editing.
+3. Implement account-scoped inbox synchronization and deduplication.
+4. Add sent-message recovery and conversation reconstruction.
+5. Add encrypted local indexing and search.
+6. Add portable read/archive state through application-state records.
+7. Expose a permission-scoped messaging API.
+8. Integrate account switching, export, and relay-health diagnostics.