Jolt | Your data should be yours.

Jolt

5 min read Original article ↗

A new home for online communities

Your data
should be
yours.

Jolt lets people share posts, files, and encrypted content without handing ownership to one platform. Change the app, switch relays, or host it yourself; your identity stays yours.

Jolt nodes exchanging signed path records A peer network of Jolt nodes exchanges signed path records directly or over relay-supported connections. Each record binds an owner's public key and sequence to a path action and content identifier. SIGNED PATH RECORDS · MOVING BETWEEN NODES JOLT NETWORK { } ID · k3m7…p2qNODE 01 { } ID · m7q2…x5rNODE 02 { } ID · b4n6…t6wNODE 03 { } ID · k7p3…v5dNODE 04 { } ID · i2r6…c4zNODE 05 { } ID · n5h7…s3yNODE 06 RELAY 01 RELAY 02 { "sequence": 42, "action": "SetPath" } { "path": "/objects/7" } { "owner_public_key": "k3m7…p2q" } { "content_id": "bafkr…6f" } { "signature": "ed25519…" } JOLT NODE RELAY SIGNED PATH RECORD DIRECT OR VIA RELAY

Your identity
Belongs to you

Your links
Keep working

Your content
Can have many copies

Your apps
Remain replaceable

01 / Why

When an app disappears,
your community shouldn’t.

Today, one company usually holds your account, your posts, and the list of people who know you. That makes leaving painfully expensive.

HOW MOST APPS WORK

the app keeps your account,
your content, and your connections

  1. 01Your identity only works inside that app.
  2. 02Your links depend on its servers.
  3. 03Your audience lives in its database.
  4. 04Leaving often means starting again.

JOLT

you keep the identity;
apps simply ask to use it

  1. 01Your identity exists outside any one app.
  2. 02Your links point to content you control.
  3. 03Many computers can keep copies available.
  4. 04You can change the interface without leaving.

02 / How it works

Alice shares.
Bob opens.

Jolt does the difficult work quietly in the middle: remembering who published something, finding a copy, and checking that nobody changed it.

01 A

Alice publishes

She shares a post, a file, or something encrypted.

Jolt remembers

02 ✓

Jolt proves it

Her identity leaves a tamper-evident note saying what she shared.

copies travel

03 ↗

The network carries it

Alice, a friend, or a relay can provide a copy.

Jolt checks

04 B

Bob opens it

His Jolt verifies Alice's signature and checks the fetched bytes against their content fingerprint.

THE WHOLE PROMISE
Alice can change apps without losing her identity, her links, or her community.

Under the hood, signatures prove who published something and content fingerprints prove that the bytes are unchanged.

03 / Architecture

Two ways in.
One local authority.

Spoke gets a tightly scoped session. Console gets trusted admin access. Only the Jolt daemon holds your keys, signs changes, stores content, and joins the network.

Jolt architecture Spoke uses the capability-scoped app API and Jolt Console uses the privileged admin API. Both connect to the local Jolt daemon, which owns identity, protocol state, local storage, and networking. The daemon exchanges protocol data with Jolt peer nodes and Jolt relay nodes, then verifies what it accepts. THIS DEVICE JOLT NETWORK S Spoke social app C Jolt Console trusted control surface SCOPED SESSION ADMIN ACCESS LOCAL JOLT DAEMON jolt-node HTTP BOUNDARY · jolt-server App API checks every session capability Admin API local identities, grants, relays, diagnostics PROTOCOL ENGINE · jolt-network Identity + signing Resolve + fetch Verify + encrypt Discover providers LOCAL STORE · jolt-store Content Cache Signed logs filesystem data owned by this daemon JOLT P2P JOLT PEER NODE signed state + content JOLT RELAY NODE discovery · optional pinning

Spoke and Console never become the authority. The local daemon signs local changes and verifies what it accepts from untrusted peer and relay nodes. A Jolt relay helps discovery and may accept chosen pins; it does not own your identity.

Protocol series · eight experimental drafts

The protocol,
layer by layer.

Signed paths are the base. The RFC series also specifies device authority, multi-writer state and deletion, encrypted access, community membership and discovery, and the capability boundary between apps and the local daemon.

Status
Experimental Draft

Documents
0001-0008

Implemented RFCs
0002-0003, 0007-0008

Known gaps
0001, 0004

Design RFCs
0005-0006

Canonical source
Markdown

04 / Status

You can try it today.
It is still early.

Jolt can already publish, find, verify, and privately share content. Spoke uses it for profiles, posts, threads, and private messages. Setup and everyday use still need polish.

WORKING NOW

  • Create and use a Jolt identity
  • Publish content under stable links
  • Fetch content from other nodes
  • Approve what each app may do
  • Share encrypted private content
  • Use relays for discovery and availability

STILL ROUGH

  • Using one identity across several devices
  • Easy invitations and first-time setup
  • Clear recovery when a device is lost
  • Rules for public relays
  • Platform signing and notarization
  • Independent security review

05 / Apps

Built on Jolt.
Owned by you.

Two apps already speak the protocol, and they prove the point: the same identity, the same content, the same connections, reachable from more than one interface. Both are open source and built with the Jolt SDK.

Jolt Console · v0.5.3

Choose your platform.

Jolt Console includes the local node and the controls for identities, apps, relays, and published content. This release was published on 5 September 2026.