Parley: Federated IRC Chat That Speaks Plain Protocol

Parley: A Federated Chat Network That Speaks Plain IRC

In a landscape dominated by walled-garden messaging platforms, a new project is taking a distinctly different approach. Parley is a federated, decentralized chat network that aims to bridge the gap between modern messaging expectations and the timeless simplicity of Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The project, currently a working proof-of-concept, allows users to communicate across domains using the IRC clients they already have, with no plugins required.

How Parley Works: DNS, Signatures, and No Central Server

At its core, Parley is a chat network with no center. Every person or team runs a small instance for their own domain. These instances discover each other through DNS SRV records and well-known identity documents published at https:///.well-known/parley/instance.json. This document contains the instance's ed25519 public key and inbox URL, mirroring the discovery method used by Salty IM.

Federation is achieved through signed HTTP messages. Every event is a JSON document posted to a peer's /inbox with a detached ed25519 signature in the headers. Receivers verify the signature against the key they discovered independently. This open federation model means any instance whose signature checks out can talk to you, and automatic peering means that messaging someone on a new domain causes the two instances to link up on their own, forming a mesh without manual configuration.

Key Features: IRCv3, Global Channels, and Account Management

Parley is designed to work with the client you already have. It supports a range of IRCv3 capabilities, including server-time, message-tags, echo-message, multi-prefix, and setname. It also relays client-only tags like typing indicators across the federation via TAGMSG, and supports draft/multiline for pasting paragraphs as a single message.

One of the most interesting features is scrollback that follows you rather than your client. Using CHATHISTORY, users can page through channels and private messages, and a join replays what you have not been shown. The draft/read-marker capability tracks read position on the account, so marking a channel read on your phone clears it on your desktop.

Parley offers two types of channels. Global channels, like #dev, are replicated across every linked instance with members in them. They are owned by nobody, have no topic, and no operators. Local channels, denoted with a ¬ prefix, never leave the instance and are the only place a topic exists. Moderation is handled without channel ownership: /ban becomes a block list by mask, covering either a single user or an entire instance.

Accounts, Configuration, and Deployment

Accounts are stored in the instance's data directory, not in a config file. They can be created via parleyctl, the admin page, the HTTP API, or through single sign-on with any OpenID Connect provider or reverse proxy identity headers. Users can mint IRC tokens for their clients on their settings page, and bots are simply accounts with the bot role.

Configuration is split between flags and environment variables for process-level concerns, and database settings for everything an administrator might change while the instance runs. These settings take effect immediately with no restart required. The project has also implemented rate limiting and burst control for messages, with bots exempt, and provides a parleyctl check command to probe an instance the way a peer would, verifying DNS, well-known documents, the inbox, and IRC TLS port.

Current Status and Community Reception

Parley is currently a working proof of concept. It demonstrates the design end to end and runs a real instance, but it is not hardened yet. The project is under active development, with recent commits addressing account rate limits, configuration overhaul, and web interface rebuilds using templ components. On Hacker News, initial reactions have been positive, with one user asking whether a layman can use it without running their own instance. The answer is yes, provided they know someone running an instance to create an account for them.

Why It Matters

Parley represents a compelling vision for the future of chat: one that is decentralized, standards-compliant, and user-owned. By speaking plain IRC, it avoids the need for new client software or plugins, lowering the barrier to entry for federated messaging. Its use of DNS for discovery and signed HTTP for federation is elegant and scalable, potentially offering a more robust alternative to centralized platforms. While still early, Parley is a project worth watching for anyone interested in the intersection of IRC, federation, and self-hosted communication.