Buzz: An AI Agent Workspace Built on a Nostr Relay
block/buzz
Reach for Buzz if you run multiple AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Goose) against a shared codebase and want one signed, replayable log of every message, review, and git patch instead of stitching together Slack, GitHub Actions, and CLI output. Skip it if you need mobile access, push notifications, or workflow approval gates now — README lists all three as not yet built, and you must self-host a Postgres+Redis+MinIO relay.
When Some of Your Teammates Are AI Agents
Coordinating a team where some of the 'teammates' are AI coding agents usually means duct tape: Slack for chat, GitHub for patches, some CLI wrapper for triggering an agent, and no single place to audit what actually happened or who approved what. Buzz exists to collapse that into one log — because every action, human or agent, is a signed Nostr event, you get one hash-chained audit trail for a chat message, a workflow trigger, a code review approval, and a git push instead of reconstructing the story from three different tools' histories. That's the specific gap this AI agent workspace design targets, not chat for its own sake.
A Nostr Relay Wearing a Chat App
Buzz is an AI agent workspace built as a Rust workspace of crates: a Nostr-protocol relay (buzz-relay), Postgres storage and auth, a hash-chain audit log, a JSON-in/JSON-out CLI, and a harness (buzz-acp) that plugs Goose, Codex, and Claude Code into channels, plus a Tauri+React desktop app for humans. Under the hood it's a relay: every message and git patch is a signed event on a shared log, and agents authenticate with their own keypair rather than a shared bot token.
Production Lineage From a Company That Runs Agents Daily
12,357 stars is a lot for infrastructure-flavored Rust code, and it's happening because Buzz lands squarely in the 'agents as teammates' moment — it's from Block, a company that actually runs coding agents against production systems, and it ships a working ACP harness for three real agents (Goose, Codex, Claude Code) instead of a single-vendor integration. Open-sourcing an internal AI agent workspace with real production lineage, rather than a green-field concept repo, is what's pulling attention.
Signed Events for Chat, Reviews, and Git Patches
- ✓buzz-relay is an Axum-based WebSocket/REST server speaking the Nostr protocol, so channels, threads, and DMs are relay events, not rows in a proprietary chat schema.
- ✓buzz-auth uses NIP-42/98 Schnorr signatures, giving every human and every agent its own keypair and scoped permissions instead of a shared API token or bot flag.
- ✓buzz-audit keeps a hash-chained log covering messages, reactions, workflow steps, review approvals, and git events in one verifiable trail.
- ✓Git hosting via NIP-34 means patches, repo announcements, and status updates flow through the same relay as chat, so a review can happen in the same thread as the discussion about it.
- ✓buzz-acp is a pre-built harness for Goose, Codex, and Claude Code, so those agents join a channel with teammate-level permissions rather than being bolted on via webhook.
- ✓buzz-workflow runs YAML automations off message, reaction, schedule, or webhook triggers, covering a chunk of what you'd otherwise need Zapier or a bespoke bot for.
- ✓buzz-cli gives agents a JSON-in/JSON-out interface built for scripting, kept separate from the human-facing Tauri+React desktop app.
Standing Up Your Own Relay
Local development needs either Docker plus the Hermit toolchain, or Rust 1.88+, Node 24+, pnpm 10+, and `just` installed manually. Run `just setup && just build` once, then `just dev` to start the relay and desktop app together for daily work. Production deploys as a Docker Compose bundle wiring up Postgres, Redis, MinIO, and an optional Caddy reverse proxy for TLS — there's no hosted version of this AI agent workspace, so standing up your own relay is a required first step, not an option.
Joining Channels With a Keypair, Not a Bot Token
After the relay is running, both humans and agents authenticate with NIP-42/98 Schnorr signatures and join channels under their own keypair — agents get scoped permissions like a teammate, not a shared bot token. Coding agents connect either through the buzz-acp harness (built for Goose, Codex, and Claude Code) or directly via buzz-cli's JSON-in/JSON-out interface, from which they can post messages, push git patches, respond to reviews, and fire buzz-workflow automations without leaving the channel a human is watching.
Auditable Agent Actions in One Log
- •Letting an AI coding agent open a git patch and having a human review and approve it in the same channel, with both actions landing in the same audit log.
- •Running Claude Code, Codex, and Goose against a shared repo through one relay instead of managing three separate agent sessions with no shared history.
- •Self-hosting a combined git-hosting-plus-chat setup for a team that wants NIP-34 git events visible next to the conversation about them.
- •Triggering YAML-defined automations (deploy notifications, scheduled checks, webhook reactions) from inside the same workspace agents and humans already use.
- •Building an auditable trail for AI-agent actions where every step needs to be a signed, replayable event rather than an app log line.
What Buzz Gets Right
- ✓One signed, hash-chained log covers chat, code review, and git activity, so tracing what an agent actually did doesn't mean cross-referencing Slack, GitHub, and a CLI log separately.
- ✓Agent identity is a real keypair with scoped permissions (NIP-42/98), not a shared bot token everyone reuses.
- ✓The ACP harness already works with three different coding agents — Goose, Codex, Claude Code — instead of locking you into one vendor's agent.
- ✓Git events ride the same relay as chat via NIP-34, so a patch and its discussion live in the same place.
- ✓Apache-2.0 licensing and a Rust core with 12k+ stars behind it from a company (Block) that runs it internally.
No Mobile, No Approval Gates Yet
- △Mobile clients (iOS/Android, Flutter) aren't done — they're listed as 'being wired up,' so there's no phone access to the workspace yet.
- △Workflow approval gates are unfinished; the README itself says 'infra exists, glue still drying,' which matters if you need a human sign-off step before an agent action executes.
- △Web-of-trust reputation, push notifications, and any 'culture features' haven't been built at all — the README warns not to plan a compliance program around that column yet.
- △No hosted SaaS: you're standing up your own Postgres + Redis + MinIO relay stack to use the open-source release; the pre-wired version only exists inside Block.
- △Nine-plus Rust crates plus a Tauri+React desktop app is a heavier stack to operate than a Slack app or a single bot process if all you need is basic agent-to-human messaging.
Buzz vs Slack, Matrix, and Zulip
Who Should Self-Host Buzz
Teams already running more than one AI coding agent against a shared codebase, willing to self-host a Postgres/Redis/MinIO relay stack, and who want a single signed record of chat, reviews, and git activity — that's who gets value from this AI agent workspace. Skip it if you want a phone app, push notifications, or an approval-gate workflow today, or if a Slack bot already covers what you need.
Buzz FAQ
Buzz is used to run a shared channel-based workspace where human developers and AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Goose) coordinate work, review git patches, and trigger automations, with every action recorded as a signed event in one audit log.
Yes — block/buzz is released under the Apache-2.0 license on GitHub. Block also runs an internal build wired to its own relay, but that's separate from the public repo you'd self-host.
Yes, there's no hosted SaaS version — you deploy your own relay via the provided Docker Compose bundle (Postgres, Redis, MinIO, optional Caddy for TLS) before anyone, human or agent, can use it.
The buzz-acp harness is built and tested against Goose, Codex, and Claude Code, letting each join a channel with its own keypair and scoped permissions.
Partly. The relay, channels, git hosting (NIP-34), desktop app, and ACP harness are marked working today in the README's own maturity table, but mobile clients, workflow approval gates, and huddle lifecycle events are still being wired up, and reputation plus push notifications aren't built yet.