ric-chat-app

A small, TLS-encrypted terminal chat app — a threaded socket server and a curses client, plus a demo time bot. All traffic is encrypted and pinned to a self-signed certificate (encryption + MITM protection).

For chatters (install & run)

pip install ric-chat-app
join-chat

That's it — join-chat connects to the hosted server out of the box, over TLS. Pick a name when prompted and start chatting. Type !exit to leave.

Want the current time in chat? If the time bot is running, send !time.

Running your own server

The package ships only the join-chat client command. To host your own server, clone the repo and run the server module directly:

pip install ric-chat-app
# generate the server's key pair (see DEPLOYMENT.md for the exact command)
python -m ric_chat.server

Point clients at your server with an environment variable or a .env file in the directory you run from:

CHAT_MODE=remote SERVER_HOST=<your.server.ip> join-chat
# or CHAT_MODE=local for a server on 127.0.0.1

Commands

Self-hosters run the server and demo bot as modules: python -m ric_chat.server and python -m ric_chat.bots.time_bot.

Developing

git clone https://github.com/rickycarrillo3/ric_chat_app
cd ric_chat_app
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

See DEPLOYMENT.md for the full picture: how TLS pinning works, the package layout, the CI/CD pipeline, and how to deploy/update the VPS.