Protocol overview

packages/protocol (@repo/protocol) is the source of truth for the Nodus wire format. It is a pure schema/type package:

• no dependency on packages/core, relay-client, or webrtc-transport;
• zod runtime validation of every message (not just TypeScript types);
• a single parseMessage(raw) entry point that validates the envelope, dispatches to the type-specific schema, and returns a typed result or a structured error — it never throws on malformed input.

Rust and Go do not import the TypeScript types. They reference generated JSON Schema:

cd packages/protocol
pnpm generate:schemas   # emits schemas/*.schema.json + manifest.json

Generated artifacts are deterministic and committed, so Rust and Go treat them as the canonical wire contract.

EnvelopeCopy Anchor Link

All messages share a common envelope before their type-specific payload:

{
  "type": "shard_upload",
  "schema_version": "1.8",
  "message_id": "uuid",
  "payload": { "...": "..." }
}

Field naming is snake_case on the wire; TypeScript maps to/from camelCase at the serialize boundary.

In this sectionCopy Anchor Link