IRC Platform

abTARS can connect to IRC servers as a messaging platform alongside Telegram and Discord.

Configuration

~/.abtars/config/irc.json:

{
  "servers": [{
    "id": "bridges",
    "host": "192.168.1.128",
    "port": 6667,
    "nick": "KP",
    "channels": {
      "#bridges": {
        "mode": "signed",
        "requireMention": true,
        "allowFrom": ["Godfather", "Molty"],
        "trustedKeys": {
          "Molty": "<base64 Ed25519 pubkey>"
        }
      }
    }
  }]
}

Enable in .env:

IRC_ENABLED=true

Channel modes

Mode	Behavior
signed	Messages must have a valid [sig:ts:base64] Ed25519 signature. Unsigned messages are dropped.
plain	No signature required. Sender must be in allowFrom list.

Digital signatures

IRC messages can be signed with Ed25519 for authentication between instances:

• Outgoing: payload sender|channel|ts|text is signed, tag [sig:ts:base64] appended
• Incoming: signature verified against trustedKeys for that sender
• Same signing module used by the A2A peer protocol

Options

Field	Description
requireMention	Only process messages that mention the bot's nick
allowFrom	Whitelist of sender nicks (plain mode)
trustedKeys	Map of nick → Ed25519 public key (signed mode)

Anti-loop guards

• Self-echo filter (case-insensitive nick match)
• Outgoing content dedup (30s window)
• [NO-REPLY] tag — messages containing it are dropped before pipeline
• No streaming — full response delivered as single message

Reconnection

Exponential backoff: 5s → 10s → 20s → ... → 300s max. Gives up after 5 consecutive failures. Auto-rejoins channels on reconnect. Successful connect resets the counter.