Armada Lab armada.buzz

The voyage to 1.0.

Three legs, twelve stops, ranked by what keeps a Captain (the organizer who moves a whole Discord group) on Armada. Click any stop for the evidence.

01
  1. 1

    Notifications that hold

    Messages arrive on every platform without a reinstall.

    CaptainDeckhand
  2. 2

    Channel permissions

    Read-only and announcement channels, role-gated access.

    CaptainHarbormaster
  3. 3

    Invites and sync that don't break

    Links survive key rotation; communities never vanish.

    CaptainNavigator
  4. 4

    Discord bridge capacity

    The bridge stops turning away new servers.

    Captain
⚑
Milestone A Captain can move their server over, and nobody misses a message.
02
  1. 5

    iOS

    A native app, or PWA push that works on iPhone.

    CaptainDeckhand
  2. 6

    Jargon-free onboarding

    No relays or nsec at signup; signers that don't loop.

    DeckhandNavigator
  3. 7

    Easy, trusted installs

    One downloads page, signed Windows builds, store parity.

    CaptainDeckhand
  4. 8

    Moderation that holds

    Bans that rekey, spam-raid tools, media blur.

    HarbormasterCaptain
  5. 9

    Lighter on devices

    Less CPU, heat, battery and mobile data.

    Deckhand
⚑
Milestone Every member, on any phone or desktop, can join in minutes and stay.
03
  1. 10

    Translations

    Ship the language PRs contributors already sent.

    Harbormaster
  2. 11

    Presence and polish

    Online status, read receipts, better GIFs, timestamps.

    CaptainShipwright
  3. 12

    Bots and bridges

    A Matrix bridge, plug-and-play bots, Mini Apps.

    NavigatorShipwright
⚑
Milestone Larger, multilingual communities run comfortably on Armada.
⚓

Standing orders For the whole voyage

Honest security claims

A security FAQ and precise wording on hosting, encryption and AI.

Inspector

A contributor process

Answer every PR, publish this roadmap, open a dev room.

Shipwright
Leg one · Captain, Deckhand

Notifications that hold

The #1 complaint in every source and every month. Android's background service gets killed, Windows gets nothing, iOS PWA push is unreliable, and mute is ignored. The fix users found on their own was a full reinstall.

Done when
  • A "send test notification" button in settings
  • A warning when the Android background service has been killed
  • Delivery holds for a week on Android, Windows and iOS PWA before we call it fixed
  • Mute and mention-only settings are respected
In their words
~2 weeks of notifications not working on mobile or windows when my entire group uses mobile and windows is about to have us switch entirely Right now, Armada. But my honeymoon phase is wearing off. Notifications don't work
More from the feedback
Leg one · Captain, Harbormaster

Channel permissions

The top blocker for moving an existing Discord community. Roles today mostly grant access to a channel; Captains need read-only and announcement channels, role-gated channels and deletable roles. It waits on a Concord spec update ("Role Sets").

Done when
  • Read-only and announcement channels ship first
  • Per-channel post and view permissions by role
  • Roles can be deleted and reordered
In their words
the channel roles are holding me back from actually onboarding my existing community
More from the feedback
Leg one · Captain, Navigator

Invites and sync that don't break

Invite links stop working after key rotation, epochs fork, and communities disappear or differ between devices. About 15 Nostr users and at least 12 chat users hit this. It's the most common failure between "I heard about it" and "I'm using it".

Done when
  • Invite links survive rekeys
  • Clear errors, e.g. "this invite was rotated, ask for a new one"
  • A "repair community" action for forked state
  • The community list is the same on every device
In their words
Invite links just seem a bit broken in general right now lol
More from the feedback
Leg one · Captain

Discord bridge capacity

The bridge and one-click import are what users praise unprompted, and the landing page leads with them. Since about Sep 26 the bot has hit Discord's cap for unverified bots, turning newcomers away right after the Hacker News launch.

Done when
  • The Discord bot is verified, or sharded across several bots
  • The landing page shows bridge status while it's limited
In their words
Armada Discord bridge are broken, can't add it to my server cause it don't have bot verification :/
More from the feedback
Leg two · Captain, Deckhand

iOS

The most requested platform. Groups can't move all the way while iPhone members are stuck on a PWA without reliable push. Our own pages give several different answers about iOS.

Done when
  • A native app in the App Store, or PWA push that works reliably
  • One consistent answer about iOS on every page
In their words
My soul for armada ios
More from the feedback
Leg two · Deckhand, Navigator

Jargon-free onboarding

New users are asked about relays with no explanation, end up named "Anonymous", and are surprised that pasting a key doesn't bring their servers. Remote signers (Amber, Clave, bunker) loop or spam approval prompts.

Done when
  • Signup never shows "relay" or "nsec"
  • A name prompt at signup
  • Key backup as a gentle nudge later, not a gate up front
  • Signer sessions that don't loop
In their words
nope, I'm not a nostr guy
More from the feedback
Leg two · Captain, Deckhand

Easy, trusted installs

Download links are hard to find, Play lags 1–2 weeks behind, Windows Defender flags the installer as a Trojan, an outdated third-party Zapstore listing is still live, and two forced reinstalls burned trust.

Done when
  • One downloads page, linked from everywhere
  • Code-signed Windows builds
  • Store builds within a day of release
  • The stale Zapstore listing is removed or relabeled
  • No more forced reinstalls
In their words
Detected as Trojan:Win32/Wacatac.B!mlPlease never do this again.
More from the feedback
Leg two · Harbormaster, Captain

Moderation that holds

Users found that banned members could rejoin, read and mint invites, that bans in private communities didn't rekey, and that banned users can still mention people. Spam raids prompted requests for blur and spoiler modes.

Done when
  • A ban rekeys, and old invites stop working
  • Banned users can't mention or post
  • Spam-raid tools and media blur
  • The UI explains what a ban guarantees in public vs private communities
In their words
Gets even more fun with the lack of invite control, turns out the banned user can still make valid invites
More from the feedback
Leg two · Deckhand

Lighter on devices

Desktop CPU use around the clock, phones running hot, battery drain, and about 7 MB per minute of mobile data. Android improved after profiling; desktop hasn't yet.

Done when
  • Idle CPU near zero on desktop
  • A data-saver mode on mobile
In their words
even simple x does not make my device soo hot
More from the feedback
Leg three · Harbormaster

Translations

Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Ukrainian speakers run some of our most active communities. Contributors have already submitted translation PRs that haven't been answered.

Done when
  • The pending translation PRs are reviewed and merged
  • A simple way for communities to contribute languages
Leg three · Captain, Shipwright

Presence and polish

The small Discord habits people miss: who's online, read receipts, a better GIF picker, absolute timestamps, font size. Several already exist as contributor PRs.

Done when
  • Online presence and read receipts
  • A better GIF picker
  • Absolute timestamps and font-size settings
More from the feedback
Leg three · Navigator, Shipwright

Bots and bridges

Communities want a Matrix bridge, plug-and-play bots (music, roleplay, moderation), and more Mini Apps, which users already call "things Discord can't do".

Done when
  • A Matrix bridge that handles encryption and message expiry
  • A bot directory or marketplace
In their words
WebXDC is so powerful
More from the feedback
Standing order · Inspector

Honest security claims

Developers push back on "No host required", "Nobody can read your chats" and "Unbannable" as phrased: the defaults are ours, there's no forward secrecy, and no audit of the implementation. AI-written code is the biggest trust barrier outside Nostr. Candid answers end these threads.

Done when
  • A security FAQ: forward secrecy, metadata, defaults, audit status
  • A known-limitations page
  • A short statement on how code is reviewed and tested
In their words
zero forward secrecy or post-compromise security. it's a slightly more private version of nip-29. this is not e2ee messaging.
More from the feedback
Standing order · Shipwright

A contributor process

A handful of outside contributors wrote dozens of merged PRs and do much of the community support. Contributor PRs fell sharply in September, and more than a dozen have no response.

Done when
  • Every PR gets an answer within a week, even if it's "no"
  • This roadmap is public and kept current
  • A dev room for contributors
  • Deprecation windows for spec changes
In their words
After 21 approved PRs, is there a cool dev room hidden somewhere or if not can we make one for contributors to have easier access to devs?I was working on one but abandoned it since your changing the spec before I even have all the tools lol