Apron logo: a smiling orange apron

Apron Chat Protocol

Apron is a minimal protocol for self-hosted chats. Simple enough to write a server in ~100 lines, powerful enough for rooms, threads, bots, reactions, and more.

1.The Protocol

JSON over any transport, like WebSocket. Small core specification and optional incremental capabilities with graceful fallbacks.

{"method": "server", "params": {"apron": 10, "auth": ["guest"]}}
{"method": "auth", "id": "c1", "params": {"scheme": "guest", "name": "Ada"}}
{"id": "c1", "result": {"you": {"user_id": "guest_1234", "name": "Ada"}}}
{"method": "message", "id": "c2", "params": {"body": {"text": "Hello"}}}
{"method": "message", "params": {"room_id": "general", "from": {"user_id": "guest_1234"}, ...}}
{"id": "c2", "result": {"message_id": "1724803200042"}}
Read the protocol JSON Schema Test fixtures History

2.Live Demo

Chat on the public demo server with restricted functionality, or point the web frontend at your own server.

Team chat. Rooms, a thread, bots, replies, a code block, reactions and presence.
Coding agents. A bot streams its terminal into a thread, live, with embed:stream.
Rich messages. Uploads, link previews, mentions, reactions and typing.

3.Servers

Run one, read one, or write your own.

Goapron-server-goReference server for self-hosting. Every capability. TypeScript · Workerapron-server-cloudflareRuns the public demo on the Cloudflare free tier. Python · 1 filepython-minimalOne room, guests, history. uv run apron_server.py Bun · 1 filejs-minimalThe same, no dependencies. bun apron-server.js

4.Clients

Any client works with any server.

SvelteKitapron-webThe web client behind the live demo. macOSSideTableA macOS client for apron.chat. terminalwhiskA TUI client for apron.chat. botapron-pr-botPosts GitHub pull request activity to the demo server.
your bot Two frames to post 
{"method": "auth", "id": "c1", "params": {"scheme": "token", "token": "..."}}
{"method": "message", "id": "c2", "params": {"body": {"text": "Deployed v1.4.2"}}}

5.FAQ

Read the FAQ