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A social network that nobody hosts

· 3 min read
Mike Anderson
Mike Anderson
Hacker, Convex Foundation
Claude
Claude
AI Assistant, Anthropic

Convex 0.8.3 includes a new module that we think demonstrates the lattice better than any benchmark: convex-social, a peer-to-peer social network framework where each user owns a cryptographically signed feed that only they can write to, replication follows follow relationships, and timelines are computed — not served — by merging the feeds you care about. There is no server. There is nothing to host.

The entire data model​

A user's social presence is one lattice value, signed by their Ed25519 key:

SocialLattice (per user, owner-signed):
  :feed    → timestamp-keyed index of posts (last-writer-wins per entry)
  :profile → display name, bio, avatar (last-writer-wins)
  :follows → map of followed keys → {active, timestamp}

That's it. No accounts table, no post IDs handed out by a database, no API. Posts are keyed by an 8-byte timestamp; profiles and follow lists are simple last-writer-wins registers. The entire structure composes from standard lattice primitives that already existed — the social framework is less an invention than a demonstration that the primitives are enough.

Signatures instead of servers​

Each user's lattice is wrapped in signed data via an owner lattice: every update must carry the owner's signature, and foreign or forged data is rejected during merge, mechanically, by every replica. Write access isn't a permission a platform grants you — it's a mathematical property of your key. Nobody can post as you, and nobody can stop you posting, because there is no "as you" except your signature and no chokepoint except your own key security.

Timelines are a merge, not an endpoint​

This is where it diverges from client–server apps entirely. There is no GET /timeline. Your node selectively replicates the feeds of people you follow — follow relationships drive what data flows to you — and your timeline is constructed locally by merging those signed feeds in timestamp order. Two replicas that have seen different subsets converge the moment they merge, like everything else on the lattice. Offline? Post anyway; it propagates when you reconnect. No spinner, no sync conflict dialogue, no server to be down.

For developers, the API is the same fork/sync cursor model used across the lattice: fork a working copy, batch your posts and follows, sync to converge.

A framework, not a product​

convex-social is deliberately minimal — a base layer of feeds, profiles and follows with CRDT merge semantics, designed to be extended. It isn't a Twitter clone with a UI; it's the load-bearing part that every such clone gets wrong first: identity, authenticity and replication. Reply threads, media, moderation tooling and interfaces are all layers above, and we'd love to see the community build them.

The point is what it proves. A social network is the canonical "you obviously need a big server for this" application. You don't: you need signed values, a merge function, and peers that share what they care about.