Build a Bonafide App
Hosting Bonafide Apps
Today, Bonafide Technologies Inc. operates the infrastructure behind every Bonafide app. We're working toward a network where other organizations can host independently and still interoperate.
Today: we host
If you're building an app today, you build on our infrastructure, including the router, registry, and user database hosting.
This is how we've started, but it isn't the intended long-term arrangement.
Bonafide is designed to support independent hosting. Different organizations should be able to operate their own infrastructure without creating separate networks that can't communicate with one another.
What's planned for the end of 2026
Two pieces of protocol work are needed before independent hosting can work. Both are covered in the specification, and we're targeting the end of 2026 for their completion.
Router federation
Today, connections operate through infrastructure run by one organization. Federation will allow independently operated routers to communicate with one another.
That means two people can exchange messages even when their databases and routers are hosted by different providers.
It's similar to how email works. Two people can use different email providers and still exchange messages because their servers understand the same protocols. Neither provider needs to operate the other's infrastructure.
Removing the shared bootstrap key
There's also a change needed in how new connections are established.
Today, the first two messages of a connection handshake are encrypted using a key shared across deployments. The connection-specific secret doesn't exist yet, so these initial messages need another way to be encrypted.
The router doesn't hold this key, and the messages exchanged after the handshake use connection-specific encryption.
With independent hosts, though, a shared bootstrap key becomes a problem. Any deployment holding it could potentially decrypt another pair's initial handshake messages if it had access to that traffic.
The planned change is to put the necessary key material into the connection code itself, removing the need for a secret shared across the network.
Together, these changes provide the protocol mechanisms needed for independent hosts to interoperate.
What comes after federation
Completing the protocol work doesn't automatically mean other hosts will be ready to operate.
Once federation is available, organizations can begin running their own Bonafide routers and managing their own user databases. Their users should be able to connect and communicate with people hosted elsewhere, without everyone depending on Bonafide Technologies Inc.
There are two other pieces of work worth distinguishing from federation.
Individual self-hosting means someone running their own Bonafide node rather than relying on an organization to host their data. That's planned for later and isn't part of the end-of-2026 federation target.
Moving between hosts is a separate capability. Although the architecture is designed with portability in mind, migrating an existing account between independent hosts isn't specified in v0.1. It's a known piece of future work.
The long-term goal is for people to choose who hosts their Bonafide data and connections, whether that's Bonafide Technologies Inc., another provider, or themselves. That choice shouldn't determine which people or applications they can interact with.
Looking for hosting partners
If you operate infrastructure and are interested in hosting Bonafide apps when federation becomes available, we'd like to talk.
There's still an opportunity to help shape the practical requirements for independent hosting as we finish the design.