Opencaster

An open source client for everyone. Powered by Arca Computer. Runs on Hypersnap.

Opencaster is a public browser client for Hypersnap, forked from Quorum Desktop. The standalone entry lives in hypersnap/; the original Quorum messenger source, AGPL license, and attribution are retained below.

Website: https://opencaster.org · Source · Dev log

cd hypersnap
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
yarn dev
# Verify the standalone client, including the Worker and offline signer:
yarn verify

Browse profiles, casts, conversations, channels, notifications and search through the fixed Hypersnap gateway. Connect an existing custody wallet through a compatible browser extension or optional WalletConnect to authorize a scoped device key. Recovery phrases stay in the wallet; the website never asks for them. Optional passkeys or password encryption protect saved device keys in this browser.

The move from quorum.arca.computer preserves public profile/cast paths and published media links. Browser-local saved keys, passkeys, drafts, bookmarks and preferences remain tied to their original origin; reconnect your wallet and set up optional device saving on the new website. Existing network authorizations are not silently revoked or transferred.

Application code is open source under AGPL-3.0. Optional WalletConnect uses its own Community License; see third-party notices. See hypersnap/README.md for the release process, supported features, infrastructure dependencies and beta limits. This is an independent client, not an official Quorum or Farcaster release.

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Original Quorum messenger documentation

Quorum Desktop

The world's first fully private and decentralized group messenger. Powered by Quilibrium and the libp2p stack, Quorum can be used over TCP, QUIC, Websockets, or even LoRa — so it can run across the traditional internet, local networks, or off-grid setups.

Available Platforms:

• Web Browser - Live app (beta)

• Desktop - Electron wrapper for native desktop experience

• Mobile - quorum-mobile (React Native + Expo)

• Official website - FAQ

Repository Ecosystem

Quorum is built as a multi-repository ecosystem where shared functionality is centralized:

Repository	Purpose
quorum-desktop	Web + Electron desktop app (this repo)
quorum-mobile	React Native + Expo mobile app
quorum-shared	Shared types, hooks, sync protocol (@quilibrium/quorum-shared)

All clients sync data via the same protocol defined in quorum-shared, ensuring messages, bookmarks, and user settings stay in sync across all devices.

Documentation

For detailed documentation on specific features and components, please refer to the .agents/docs directory. You can find the complete index of available documentation in .agents/INDEX.md.

Key Documentation:

• Quorum Ecosystem Architecture - Multi-repo system and shared package
• Component Management Guide - Creating cross-platform components
• Cross-Platform Architecture - How the shared codebase works

Development Resources

The .agents/ folder contains development resources including:

• Architecture documentation and component guides
• Bug reports and solutions
• Task management (pending & ongoing, completed)
• Mobile development guidelines and cross-platform considerations

Development Tools

The src/dev/ folder contains development utilities:

• Dev tools (/dev) - Hub for the current available development tools
• Documentation Viewer (/dev) - Interactive frontend for browsing docs, tasks, and bug reports from the .agents/ folder
• Primitives Playground (/playground) - Web-based testing environment for UI primitives and components
• Mobile Playground - Comprehensive testing environment accessible by running the mobile app (see Mobile Development section)

Headless DM harness

src/dev/tests/harness/ runs the real desktop client in Node - both sides of a conversation, no browser, no devices. It exists for the DM transport investigation: reproducing decrypt failures, measuring send-vs-arrive loss, and testing session recovery unattended.

yarn harness dm-basic      # two bots exchange DMs both ways
yarn harness dm-reorder    # reproduces the upstream decrypt failure in ~35s
yarn harness dm-loss       # send-vs-arrive accounting per direction

A sibling harness drives the mobile client the same way (quorum-mobile/dev/harness/, yarn harness:dm).

Scenarios talk to the production relay and register real accounts, so use throwaway or dedicated test accounts only. The harness README covers setup, the full scenario list, and what the bench deliberately does not cover.

For the investigation these support, start at .agents/docs/transport-reliability-index.md.

Accessing Development Tools

After running yarn dev, you can access the development tools at: http://localhost:[port]/dev

Testing with Mock Data

Add ?users=N to any URL to generate mock users/contacts for testing:

# Space members list (1000 mock users)
http://localhost:5173/spaces/{space-id}/{channel-id}?users=1000

# Direct messages list (50 mock contacts)
http://localhost:5173/messages?users=50

localStorage (persistent across sessions):

// Enable mock users (Space members)
localStorage.setItem('debug_mock_users', 'true')
localStorage.setItem('debug_mock_count', '1000')

// Enable mock conversations (DM contacts)
localStorage.setItem('debug_mock_conversations', 'true')
localStorage.setItem('debug_mock_conversation_count', '50')

// Disable
localStorage.removeItem('debug_mock_users')
localStorage.removeItem('debug_mock_conversations')

Setup and Development

Retained messenger setup and full verification

The root package verifies the retained Quorum messenger as well as running Opencaster’s standalone gate. Use Node 22 and Yarn Classic 1.22:

# From the repository root
yarn setup:verify
yarn setup:verify --check
yarn verify

The setup command restores the exact compatible shared-library and SDK source revisions listed in scripts/verification-dependencies.json, installs their frozen Yarn lockfiles, builds their missing dist/ artifacts, and installs the root and hypersnap/ packages independently. The source checkouts live under ignored .quorum-deps/, with local link: dependencies; no sibling checkout or global yarn link is required.

The retained messenger uses quorum-shared 2.1.0-45 at c00c61e099fe9e682c982bc952b4e712c7a4a576 and the SDK 2.1.1 at 882d8e1b520fc97c73be964013b06a57ca4f4a63, matching its recorded upstream verification environment. Intentional dependency updates need an explicit manifest pin and a clean matching checkout. Setup refuses unexpected origins, versions, revisions or local changes rather than resetting them. Its immutable local comparison ref lets verification detect later committed or uncommitted dependency changes.

--check validates the pinned sources, built artifacts and installed root links without changing files. --deps-only restores/builds the source dependencies without installing either application. Opencaster can still be installed and verified independently from hypersnap/, using its own manifest and lockfile.

The root gate validates the dependency setup, runs messenger typecheck, lint, unit tests, offline harness and build, then runs hypersnap/yarn verify in its own directory. Generated output and dependency checkouts are excluded from lint; application sources remain checked. The normal routing, failure handling, known-red ceilings and permanent-account mint guard remain active. CI supplies --base=<before-push commit SHA> (or the PR target SHA) so a default-branch checkout compares the change being shipped, even when origin/main is already at HEAD. A fresh checkout can correctly report PASS (PARTIAL) because production live arms would create permanent accounts or Spaces; do not bypass the guard to obtain a bare PASS. Optional quorum-mobile cross-client coverage still needs that separate repository and existing persisted test identities.

When running the retained messenger locally, its Vite server proxies the Quorum API through the same origin. Opencaster uses its own fixed Hypersnap gateway. The two applications have separate build entries and dependency toolchains.

Web Development

To run the web app in development:

yarn dev

To run in Electron desktop app:

yarn dev

# In another terminal
yarn electron:dev

To build for production and preview:

yarn build:preview

Mobile Development

The mobile app lives in a separate repository: quorum-mobile

Both apps share code via the @quilibrium/quorum-shared package. See Quorum Ecosystem Architecture for details on the multi-repo setup.

Translation Workflow

All the existing translations (apart from English) have been created using an LLM.
Communities are welcome to proofread and correct them. We are setting up a dedicated platform to do just that. Proofreading completed for: English, Italian.

To Correct an Existing Language

1. Correct the file: src/i18n/<locale>/messages.po
2. Run the command:

   yarn lingui:compile

   This updates the messages.js file in src/i18n/<locale>/messages.js.
3. Commit the changes and push to the remote repository.

To Add a New Language

1. Add the language to locales.ts in: src/i18n/locales.ts
2. Run the command:

   yarn lingui:extract

   This creates the .po file in src/i18n/<new-locale>/messages.po.
3. Translate the messages in the messages.po file.
   • To translate via LLM, you can use: po-files-translator (even if you choose to use an LLM, it's important to proofread the final text)
4. Run the command:

   yarn lingui:compile

   This creates the messages.js file in src/i18n/<new-locale>/messages.js.
5. Commit the changes and push to the remote repository.

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Updated: 2026-07-28