Version 0.2.7 Latest

Lowkey Documentation

Technical documentation for Lowkey, a decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing platform built with Rust and libp2p.

Architecture Chunk Transfer GitHub

Documentation Index

Architecture Overview

System design, components, data flow, and threading model.

Chunk Transfer Protocol

Production-ready P2P chunk fetching with Request-Response and DHT provider discovery.

P2P Networking

libp2p protocols: Kademlia DHT, Gossipsub, Request-Response, Relay.

Storage Model

Content-addressed storage, chunking, manifests, and quota management.

Privacy Modes

Normal, Relay-Only, and Tor configurations for different privacy needs.

Desktop Application

Tauri 2 architecture, React frontend, IPC bindings, and streaming.

Quick Start

Build from Source

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/anthropics/lowkey.git
cd lowkey

# Build engine (Rust)
cargo build -p lowkey-engine

# Build desktop app (Tauri + React)
cd apps/desktop
npm install
npm run tauri:build

Run Development Mode

cd apps/desktop
npm run tauri:dev    # Hot reload development

Core Technologies

Layer	Technology	Purpose
Networking	`libp2p 0.56`	P2P protocols (Kademlia, Gossipsub, Request-Response)
Transport	TCP + Noise + Yamux	Encrypted multiplexed connections
Content Addressing	BLAKE3	256-bit cryptographic hashing
Encoding	CBOR	Binary message serialization
Desktop	Tauri 2 + React	Cross-platform GUI
Streaming	Axum	HTTP Range-request streaming

What's New in v0.2.7

Version 0.2.7 introduces a production-ready Request-Response protocol for reliable P2P chunk transfer:

DHT Provider Discovery - Peers announce themselves as chunk providers
Direct Unicast Requests - O(1) traffic instead of O(n) broadcast
CBOR Binary Encoding - 33% bandwidth savings over base64
Gossipsub Fallback - Legacy compatibility when providers unavailable

Performance Improvements

Metric	Before (Gossipsub)	After (Request-Response)
2-peer reliability	~0% (mesh timing)	~99%
Mesh formation required	Yes (10-30s)	No
Traffic per chunk	O(n) broadcast	O(1) unicast
Encoding overhead	33% (base64)	~5% (CBOR)