Streams and partitions
Every channel is a set of Streamr streams derived from one base ID: four for open and protected channels, five when membership is contract-backed. The stream ID has the form {ownerAddress}/{id}, which is what makes ownership self-evident.
These are protocol constants, not settings.
| Stream | Stored | Partitions | Carries |
|---|---|---|---|
…-1 message | Yes | 12 | Conversation (P0), edits and deletes (P1), moderator deltas (P2), file chunks (P3–P11) |
…-2 ephemeral | No | 3 | Presence and typing (P0), media signals (P1), media data (P2) |
…-3 admin | Yes | 3 | Moderation snapshot (P0), channel image (P1), password challenge (P2) |
…-4 keys | Yes | 4 | Key announcements (P0), requests and answers (P1), member roster (P2). Contract-backed only |
…-5 interactions | Yes | 3 | Reactions (P0), two reserved |
Who may publish where
| Stream | Open and protected | Contract-backed, visible | Contract-backed, sealed |
|---|---|---|---|
-1 | Everyone, or the owner alone if read-only | The gate contract | The shared publish key |
-2 and -5 | Everyone | The gate contract | The interactions key |
-3 | The owner | The owner | The owner |
-4 | None | Members | Members |
The -3 stays owner-only in every type, which is why the keys protocol cannot fold into it: any member must be able to publish a key request.
DM inboxes
A personal inbox is a deterministic pair of streams derived from your address: a stored message stream of 13 partitions (messages, sync, sync blobs, notifications, then nine file-chunk partitions) and an ephemeral one for presence and typing.
Its permissions are the inverse of a channel: anyone publishes, only the owner subscribes. The inbox metadata carries the owner's encryption public key, which is what lets anyone seal a message to them.
Diagrams
- Open channel
- Protected channel
- DM inbox
Content flows unencrypted; the metadata variants cover listed/unlisted and read-only combinations. The interactions stream is not drawn here.
Same layout, with every partition's content passing through AES-256-GCM under a PBKDF2-derived key. The interactions stream is not drawn here.
The inbox publishes the owner's encryption public key as on-chain metadata; every partition is sealed with a key derived via ECDH and HKDF before it touches the network.