smol.place/index.md

# Smol Mail

An online correspondence protocol reduced to its essentials: an address, a key and a message, with privacy built in from the ground up.

Email should be simple again. Inspired by [Spartan](spartan://spartan.mozz.us/), [Misfin](gemini://misfin.org/), and [LXMF](https://github.com/markqvist/lxmf).

- A five command protocol that just works
- One 32-byte master key is the only identity: your key is your account.
- A fresh key seals every message, nobody can trace who talks to whom.
- Anti-spam without censorship
- No certificates, no CAs, no expiry.

## Send your first message

Get started with a @smol.place address. Pin our server's public key before you connect: 

> `po3cxpzjrt73dypt2rplskbkywizr44afhqthaa5x47mfpe4kesq` 

Your smol mail client checks it on every connection, so you always know you're talking to us and never an impostor.

Not sure what any of this means? No problem! Just visit our [Webmail Client](http://webmail.smol.place) to register your address and start sending encrypted messages.

## Identity

Identity is one Ed25519 keypair. The 32-byte public key *is* the identity; the 32-byte seed is the only secret to back up. Encryption keys are derived from the same keypair, so there is exactly one thing to hold, move between servers, print on paper or scan from a screen.

Signatures prove authorship. A throwaway key per message means a stolen identity key cannot decrypt anything already sent.

## Addressing

```
alice@example.org                                     short form, resolved via the server
smol://alice@example.org/mfrggzdfmztwq2lknnwg23tpo…   self-certifying, carries its own key
```

The short form is typeable. The long form carries the key itself, so an address shared by QR code, contact file or link needs no trust in any server at all. Either way, changing servers never changes an identity.

Keys learned from a server are pinned on first use. Later changes need a rotation certificate signed by the previous key, or explicit confirmation.

## Cryptography

Ed25519 · X25519 · ChaCha20-Poly1305 · SHA-256. Four established primitives, no novel cryptography, nothing else anywhere in the protocol. Transport is TCP with a Noise handshake. No certificates, no CA, no expiry.

## Specification

[SPEC.md](SPEC.md): wire format, operations, trust model and conformance.