mesh-chat

Mesh Chat Demo

A peer-to-peer chat demonstrating Bifrost's transport abstraction.

What This Shows

This demo shows how Bifrost enables direct communication between peers across any transport (UDP, WebSocket, WebRTC) with the same code. Messages route through the mesh network.

Running the Demo

Terminal 1 - Start first node

go run main.go --listen :5000

Note: All flags can also be set via environment variables (e.g., LISTEN=:5000).

Note the Peer ID that is printed.

Terminal 2 - Connect to first node

go run main.go --listen :5001 --dial <PEER_ID_FROM_TERMINAL_1>@127.0.0.1:5000

Start Chatting

Type messages in either terminal and press Enter. Messages are sent directly peer-to-peer over encrypted QUIC streams.

Key Features

• Transport Agnostic: Same code works over UDP, WebSocket, or WebRTC
• Encrypted: All traffic uses TLS 1.3 via QUIC
• P2P: Direct peer-to-peer, no servers required

Architecture

┌─────────────┐         QUIC/UDP          ┌─────────────┐
│   Peer A    │◄─────────────────────────►│   Peer B    │
│  :5000      │    Encrypted Stream       │  :5001      │
└─────────────┘                           └─────────────┘

Testing

Run the end-to-end tests:

go test -tags test_examples .

Tests verify:

• Multi-hop routing (A → B → C)
• Broadcast to multiple peers
• Message delivery guarantees

Transport Options

The same chat code works unchanged over:

• UDP/QUIC - Low latency, NAT traversal via UDP
• WebSocket - Works through corporate firewalls
• WebRTC - Browser-to-browser without servers

Change the transport configuration without code changes.