ECP-0008: iroh discovery + transport design

Status: Draft

Problem

We need a discovery and transport layer that can survive hostile networks, reduce central points of failure, and support stream swarms across independently hosted relays.

Decision

Adopt iroh as the mesh substrate with the following design:

Dial by public key: every node has an iroh endpoint identity; connections are established by endpoint id with automatic hole punching and relay fallback.
MoQ over iroh: run MoQ sessions over iroh QUIC connections using a dedicated ALPN (e.g. every.channel/moq/0).
Discovery via gossip: use iroh-gossip to disseminate stream catalogs and track announcements, keyed by StreamId.
Transport flexibility: support iroh custom transports (e.g. Tor) for nodes that need anonymity or censorship resistance.
Multipath first: leverage iroh’s multipath QUIC capabilities to increase resilience and adapt to changing network conditions.

Consequences

Nodes can join the swarm with minimal configuration and no centralized registry.
The mesh can degrade gracefully under takedown pressure by routing through relays or Tor.

Alternatives considered

Centralized rendezvous servers: rejected due to fragility and governance risk.
Manual peer lists: rejected due to onboarding friction.

Rollout / teardown

Add an iroh transport crate that exposes a connect API for MoQ sessions.
Implement gossip-based stream catalog synchronization.
Add optional Tor transport profile for high-risk regions.

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