steer

Steer is a small but opinionated experiment in local‑first collaboration. It pairs a Dioxus LiveView front end with a libp2p-powered backend so you can ideate even when Wi‑Fi is flaky, then sync when peers appear. This post walks through how it works, how to run it, and what to demo.

What Steer Does

• Local-first: you can read/write ideas and comments without a server round-trip; networking is additive, not required.
• P2P sync: libp2p gossips events (ideas, votes, moderation actions) between peers.
• Moderation: capabilities, rate limits, and proof checks gate inbound events.
• Offline shell: a minimal service worker caches the app shell and assets (/offline.html keeps the UI available).

Architecture Snapshot

• Rust + Axum host a Dioxus LiveView app at / and a WebSocket endpoint at /ws.
• The derived application state is rebuilt from an append-only event log (steer-core + steer-net).
• Static assets live under crates/steer-app/static (ë.css, ë.ui.js, icons, offline page) and are served directly by the Axum router.
• The service worker pre-caches the shell and icons; it stores fetched requests into a simple cache (steer-cache-v2).

Running It Locally

Prereqs: Rust (stable), Git. No external DB or brokers required.

git clone https://github.com/your-org/steer.git
cd steer
cargo run --package steer -- \
  --http 127.0.0.1:8080 \
  --store memory

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8080/ in your browser. The UI loads ë.css for styling and connects to /ws for live updates.

File-backed store

Persist the log to disk and reuse it across restarts:

cargo run --package steer -- \
  --store file \
  --store-path ./data/steer.log

P2P toggles

• --no-p2p: run in fully local mode.
• --listen /ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/0: add more listen addresses.
• --dial /ip4/…/tcp/…/p2p/<peerid>: connect to a remote peer.
• --wan-profile: enable relay + AutoNAT, disable mDNS for WAN-friendly operation.

Moderation knobs

• --require-pow-bits 8: inbound envelopes must prove PoW with 8 leading zero bits.
• --attach-pow-bits 8: attach PoW to outbound envelopes.
• --allow-invite <token> / --invite-token <token>: require and attach invite tokens.
• --cap-subject <pubkey>: embed your capability subject in moderation events.

Demo Script

1. Create ideas: Propose a few ideas; note the single-line inputs and dotted containers. Show offline shell still working if you flip Chrome to offline (cached by SW).
2. Voting + comments: Open comments, add replies, collapse threads. Observe live updates across two browser tabs (they share the same WebSocket and state).
3. Moderation actions: Hide an event by ID, label it, then toggle “strict mode” to hide unapproved content. Grant/Revoke capabilities to a subject and see labels appear.
4. Checkpoint/export: Click “Checkpoint now” to publish a checkpoint event, then download /export and re-import it to show idempotent ingestion.
5. P2P peek (optional with two nodes): Run a second instance with --dial to the first; add ideas on one node and watch them appear on the other.

Notable Files

• crates/steer-app/src/main.rs: Axum router, service worker payload, static asset routes.
• crates/steer-app/src/ui.rs: Dioxus LiveView UI; references ë.css for the shell and keeps small bridge styles for app-specific classes.
• crates/steer-app/static/ë.css: Design system (sharp, minimal, grid-aligned).
• crates/steer-app/static/ë.ui.js: Minimal JS behaviors (modals, toasts, cmdk, validation, pagination).
• crates/steer-core, crates/steer-net: Event model and networking.

Operational Notes

• Service worker cache name is steer-cache-v2; bump it when adding static assets so clients refresh.
• The UI is LiveView-driven; no SPA bundle build step is required.
• If you ship binaries, include the static/ assets alongside for the routes to serve them.

Closing Thoughts

Steer’s focus is ergonomics under bad networks: the UI stays responsive with or without peers, and synchronization is a best-effort background concern. The combination of Dioxus LiveView and libp2p keeps the stack lean while still giving you real-time collaboration and offline resilience.