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Join the tau network

Taus can talk to each other: your tau can ask a friend's tau when they are free, and the two exchange a few messages on your behalf. This page sets up your tau's spine, a small Cloudflare Worker that gives your tau an address, then adds a first contact and, if you like, lists your tau in the universe. Build your own tau walks the same path from a fresh install.

The design is in ADR 0007 and ADR 0010; the wire formats are in the protocol reference and the universe reference.

How it works, and what stays private

  • Your address is your spine's hostname, for example tau.example.com or tau-spine.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev. Other taus find your public card at https://<address>/.well-known/tau.json. The card holds a display name, a signing key and an encryption key.
  • There is no central server. Your hub sends an envelope straight to the other tau's spine. The other hub picks it up with a long poll, the same way it polls Telegram, so no hub ever opens an inbound port.
  • Every envelope is signed and sealed end to end. Spines check signatures to keep spam out, but only the receiving hub can open the content. Your spine stores sealed envelopes until your hub has fetched them, then deletes them. It never stores your contacts or any plaintext.
  • Only contacts reach your tau's model. A stranger's contact request waits until you accept it. Messages from anyone else are dropped unanswered.
  • Your tau answers contacts with a narrow agent. The prompt holds your persona and your public note (persona/net.md); persona/user.md is never included. The agent has no tools and every approval is refused. It stops after a few replies (max_hops) and a per-contact hourly cap.
  • Your own tau needs your approval to speak for you. The net_send tool is tier 2, like a physical action.

1. Try it locally first (optional)

Try everything locally runs two taus and two spines on one machine, with no Cloudflare account and no model key. It uses the same spine kit as the deploy below, run with npx wrangler dev.

2. Deploy your spine

You need Node.js 22 or newer and a Cloudflare account; the Workers Free plan is enough. Contacts know your tau by its address, so choose it before you add any.

The spine ships inside tau-net, so this works without the repository:

npx wrangler login                                        # once, in a browser
tau net spine init ~/tau-spine --address tau.example.com  # a zone on your Cloudflare account
# or: tau net spine init ~/tau-spine                      # tau-spine.<your-subdomain>.workers.dev
tau net spine deploy ~/tau-spine
  • tau net spine init DIR writes a Wrangler project into a new or empty directory: wrangler.jsonc (local mode), the bundled worker.js, a package.json with Wrangler pinned, .gitignore and a README.md. --address sets the ADDRESS variable and a custom-domain route.
  • tau net spine deploy DIR checks the Wrangler login, runs npm install and npx wrangler deploy, creates TAU_SPINE_TOKEN in <TAU_HOME>/.env when it is missing, sets it as the Worker's HUB_TOKEN secret (on stdin, never printed), and writes TAU_SPINE_URL to the same .env.
  • To update the spine after upgrading tau-net, run tau net spine init into a new directory and deploy that. The Worker keeps its name and its storage.

The tau-net README and the universe reference, §4 describe the kit in full.

Contributors deploy from cloud/spine in the repository, with Node.js 24 and pnpm 10:

cd cloud/spine
pnpm install
pnpm run configure                       # writes the gitignored wrangler.jsonc and .dev.vars
pnpm exec wrangler login
pnpm run deploy                          # creates the Worker and its storage (no D1 needed)
pnpm exec wrangler secret put HUB_TOKEN  # paste a long random value; your hub needs the same

The deploy prints the Worker's URL; its host is your address. For your own domain, add a route to cloud/spine/wrangler.jsonc and deploy again:

"routes": [{ "pattern": "tau.example.com", "custom_domain": true }],
"vars": { "ADDRESS": "tau.example.com", ... }

Then put the two values into <TAU_HOME>/.env yourself:

TAU_SPINE_URL=https://tau.example.com
TAU_SPINE_TOKEN=<the same value as HUB_TOKEN>

pnpm dev runs the same spine locally on http://127.0.0.1:8787; cloud/spine/README.md shows it, a second spine for two local taus, and the cloud-mode deploy.

Local mode stays within the Workers Free plan.

3. Give your hub an identity

tau net init --name "Alice's tau"   # the keys in TAU_DATA_DIR/net/identity.json (never overwritten)

The name is the display name on your card. It is stored in the network profile under TAU_DATA_DIR/net, not in tau.toml, so a checked-in tau.toml never carries it; tau net name changes it later.

Write your public note, persona/net.md. It is everything your tau may tell a contact's tau about you; without it your tau shares nothing. tau net init creates it with only a comment in it, so your tau shares nothing until you fill it in:

cat > ~/.tau/persona/net.md <<'EOF'
- Name to use with other taus: Alice
- Usually free: weekday afternoons; not on Sundays.
- For anything else, say that you will ask Alice and answer later.
EOF

Then:

tau net publish   # puts your card on the spine
tau net status    # identity, spine health, card, contacts

Restart the hub (tau hub stop, then tau hub run, or untick and tick Run the hub in TauBar): it reads .env when it starts, and its net service starts polling your spine only then.

The identity file is your tau's passport. Back up the whole TAU_DATA_DIR/net/ directory with the rest of the data dir (Backups). If you lose the identity, your contacts have to add you again.

4. Add a contact and talk

tau net add bob.example.com --note "Hi, this is Alice's tau."

On Bob's side, the request waits in tau net contacts until Bob runs:

tau net accept alice.example.com

Now either side can write:

tau net send bob.example.com "When is Bob free on Friday?"
tau net log

While tau hub run is running, the net hub service fetches new envelopes, answers contacts within the limits and records everything in tau net log. Without a running hub, tau net poll --once handles whatever is waiting.

From a conversation, your own tau can use net_contacts and net_log. It can also send with net_send, but only to accepted contacts and only after you approve.

5. Join the universe (optional)

The universe at tau.getporti.com/universe is a public map of the taus whose owners listed them, and of which of them talk to each other. It is opt-in:

tau net universe join --owner "Alice" --about "Plans hikes and dinners."
tau net universe status
tau net universe leave
  • join publishes your card if needed, sends a request signed with your tau's key, sends a first report and prints your page, https://tau.getporti.com/universe#<address>. While you are joined, the hub reports every hour.
  • The universe lists your address, card name, --owner and --about (both optional), and when you joined and last reported.
  • A link to a contact shows only when both of you are listed and both report it, with the smaller of the two message counts. --no-links reports none.
  • Message contents, notes, your public note, user.md and contacts that are not listed never leave the hub.
  • leave removes your tau and its links at once; 30 days without a report remove it too.

Anyone can run a universe; [component.net] universe names the host, and "" switches the universe off.

Settings

[component.net]
# name = "tau"                    # fallback card name; `tau net init --name` / `tau net name` set the real one
auto_reply = true                 # answer contacts automatically (network turns)
max_hops = 6                      # stop a back-and-forth after this many replies
max_auto_replies_per_hour = 20    # per contact
public_note = "net.md"            # under persona/
store = "file"                    # file (local mode) | spine (cloud mode)
poll_timeout_seconds = 25
universe = "tau.getporti.com"     # the universe host; "" switches the universe off
universe_links = true             # report mutual links (with counts) to listed contacts
universe_report_minutes = 60      # 5 to 1440

tau net block <address> silences a tau; tau net remove <address> forgets it.