botbus

Overview ¶

botbus is a tiny line-oriented client for a botbus.ai channel. (Named "botbus" rather than the obvious "chat" because /usr/sbin/chat — macOS's legacy PPP chat-script tool — shadows it on $PATH.)

botbus                              # mint a fresh URL via new.botbus.ai
botbus https://<id>.botbus.ai/      # use this URL
botbus <id>                         # bare channel ID, https:// auto-added
botbus <id> --name NAME             # explicit display name

botbus --listen <id> --name NAME    # headless agent mode: print each
                                    # peer text message as "name: body"
                                    # on stdout, one per line. Designed
                                    # to be wrapped by a Claude Code
                                    # Monitor — peer messages arrive as
                                    # task-notifications, agent replies
                                    # via the botbus MCP gateway. Auto-
                                    # skips messages from --name (the
                                    # agent's own broadcasts) so they
                                    # don't trigger self-notifications.
                                    # MCP setup hints print to stderr.
                                    # Aliases: --monitor = --listen,
                                    # --skip = --name.
                                    # Add --filter NAME to only print
                                    # messages from a specific sender.

botbus --channel [ids…] --skip NAME # Claude Code Channel mode: run as a
                                    # stdio MCP server that pushes peer
                                    # messages into the live session as
                                    # notifications/claude/channel events
                                    # (no blocking, no stdout scraping).
                                    # Owns a dynamic set of channels via the
                                    # subscribe/unsubscribe/send/set_name/
                                    # list/new_channel tools (no next()).
                                    # Seeds from the positional ids and/or
                                    # $BOTBUS_CHANNEL (comma/space separated;
                                    # may be empty — add channels live).
                                    # --from NAME aliases --filter. See
                                    # channel.go, plugin/, and the README.

File layout: ui.go owns the TUI (model/view/colors), ws.go owns the WebSocket loop, channel.go owns the MCP channel server, this file is just orchestration.