glm-5.2
3006e29afc
Two refinements from the review: 1. Control stream_types (3/4/5) carry ALPN-specific payloads, not JSON. The channels layer is blind to what control stream_types carry — it reassembles bytes and delivers them to the handler. TTY happens to use JSON for its control channel because its control messages map cleanly to JSON; another ALPN might use a binary format. The channels layer does not mandate JSON on control stream_types, the same way it doesn't mandate a format for data stream_types. This prevents the TTY/PTY JSON constraint from becoming a binding constraint on all future channel types. (ADR-071, channels-wire.md) 2. Hub and worker are consumers of channels, not sub-crates. The existing alknet-hub crate IS the channels hub — it depends on channels-call and uses channels as its substrate, with the relay logic (ADR-079) living in alknet-hub. A worker is any crate that uses ChannelClient to dial. There are no channels-hub or channels-worker sub-crates. The dependency direction is: alknet-hub → channels-call → channels-core → alknet-core; worker → channels-call → channels-core → alknet-core. The channels crate has no dependency on alknet-hub or any worker crate. (ADR-081, overview.md)
Alknet
Status: Pre-alpha — This project is undergoing a major architectural pivot to an ALPN-as-service model. The previous implementation has been archived and a greenfield rebuild is in progress.
A self-hostable networking toolkit built on QUIC+TLS with ALPN-based protocol dispatch. Each protocol handler (SSH, SFTP, Git, HTTP, DNS, messaging, call protocol) registers an ALPN string on a shared endpoint. The ALPN negotiation during the TLS/QUIC handshake routes connections to the correct handler before any application bytes are read.
Core Insight
A service IS an ALPN. One endpoint, one port, many protocols — dispatched by the TLS handshake, not by application-level peeking or separate listeners.
Crates
| Crate | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
alknet-vault |
stable | Local key vault: BIP39/SLIP-0010/AES-GCM key derivation and encryption |
alknet-core |
planned | ProtocolHandler trait, ALPN router, auth/identity, config |
alknet-ssh |
planned | SSH handler (russh), SOCKS5, port forwarding |
alknet-call |
planned | JSON-RPC call protocol (EventEnvelope framing) |
alknet-fs |
planned | Content-addressed file storage (iroh-blobs backend) |
alknet-sftp |
planned | SFTP handler (russh-sftp protocol core) |
alknet-git |
planned | Git smart protocol handler (gix) |
alknet-http |
planned | HTTP handler (axum, REST API, MCP) |
alknet-dns |
planned | DNS handler (hickory-proto, pkarr) |
alknet-msg |
planned | E2E encrypted messaging, mixnet support |
alknet |
planned | CLI binary (assembles and registers handlers) |
Documentation
- ALPN-as-service architecture — pivot proposal
- Cleanup plan — greenfield transition plan
- SDD process — spec-driven development process
- Research references — iroh, russh, russh-sftp deep dives
Reference implementation (previous architecture) is preserved at /workspace/@alkdev/alknet-main/.
License
Licensed under either of
- Apache License, Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
- MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
at your option.
Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in this work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.