$ patches

Terminal-native social media. Chronological, open-source, yours. A real Ink/React TUI against a self-hostable node.

try it in the browser read the guide github

patches: Home

Home
 
@allie · just now
hello from the terminal
♡ 0 · 0 replies
 
@juan · 1 hour ago
welcome to patches, allie — replying from my terminal
♡ 0 · 0 replies
 
@allie · 1 hour ago
hello from production! posted from the terminal via patches-social.fly.dev
♥ 1 · 1 reply
 
— end of the timeline —

connected · patches-social.fly.dev:443 · @juan j/k move Enter thread p author r reply l like b bookmark o open media ! report g h/l/p go ? help

what it does

no ranking: Home and local timelines are strictly chronological. No engagement-optimized feed.
terminal-first: Keyboard-first Ink/React TUI with Kitty inline images and a plain fallback for other terminals.
self-hostable: MIT-licensed. Run your own node against Postgres, or use the flagship hosted node.
patches pages: Every account gets a small structured mini-site, no HTML or CSS required.
federation seam: An ActivityPub gateway lab, built as a seam from day one.
moderation: Invite-only bootstrapping, domain blocks and ingestion hardening are part of the core.

more of the TUI

profile

Notifications view in the Patches TUI — notifications

Keybinding help overlay in the Patches TUI — help

quickstart

Run your own node locally:

git clone https://github.com/alliecatowo/patches && cd patches
mise install && pnpm install
pnpm --filter patches-social build
node apps/tui/dist/cli.js register --handle you --display-name "You" --email you@example.com --invite <code>

Then, any time:

node apps/tui/dist/cli.js

Coming soon

npm i -g patches-social, a single self-contained global install (tracked as P9-003).

See the guide for the full walkthrough, or the architecture overview for how a node is put together.

$ patches

what it does ​

more of the TUI ​

quickstart ​

what it does

more of the TUI

quickstart