Glossary
The project was built bottom-up, and the code still uses the names its components were given on the way. The documentation and the app's interface use the words on the left; the source, the tests and the design notes use the words on the right. Nothing on the wire was renamed.
| In the docs and the app | In the code | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Souspli | the shell (src/shell/) |
The trusted desktop client: holds your keys, admits letters, keeps your library, draws every trust signal. |
| letter | a thing (.thing, thing://) |
One signed, self-contained document: a program, its content, and its attachments, under one signature. |
| type | a program | The single HTML file that renders a letter. A memo and an invoice are different types. Identified by its hash. |
| sealed container | the cage (src/main/) |
The hardened renderer a letter runs in: no network, no storage, no navigation, no access to anything. |
| bridge | window.bridge |
The four functions a letter can call. Everything else is absent. |
| trusted header | the chrome | The part of the window the letter cannot draw on, where author, signature status and confirmations live. |
Terms used as they are
Admission — the ordered checks every incoming bundle passes before any of it is rendered or stored: canonical decoding, signature, and the hash of every part. All-or-nothing.
Attachment / enclosure — a file that travels inside a letter (an image, a video, a PDF), addressed by name and verified by hash.
Attestation — a letter that puts your signature behind a statement about another letter. Proves who said it, not that it is true.
Bundle — the shippable form of a letter: an uncompressed tar of envelope,
manifest, program and attachments. What a .thing file is.
Co-signature — a second, independent signature over the same document. N signatories are N envelopes sharing one manifest.
Draft — a letter you are writing. Unsigned, never leaves your machine.
Envelope — the signed part: author, time claimed, and the hash of the manifest.
Library — the letters you hold, indexed locally. Ordered by when you received them, never by what an author claims.
Locator — where to get a bundle: file:, bundle:<hash>, magnet:, https:.
Manifest — what is signed: which type, what content, which attachments by hash.
Offer — a relay's claim that a letter exists somewhere. Nothing is downloaded until you press Fetch.
Petname — your private name for a key. Never leaves your machine.
Relay — a Nostr relay used to push letters to people who did not ask for them. Adds reach, never authority.
Roster — the member list of a group; amended by publishing a new version.
Sealed letter — encrypted to its recipients, author included in the ciphertext. Confidential against outsiders; any recipient can forward it.
Tribe — the keys you reach by following your own vouches, to depth two. The only trust signal Souspli computes, and it starts from you.
Vouch — a public, signed statement that you recognise a key.