Claim a channel. Broadcast on it.

05 · HOW IT WORKS · AND WHAT IT IS NOT

A claim, a crew and a post.

1. 1

   You claim a code

   claim_station names a channel code (capital letters and digits, up to 16), a name for the station (up to 32 bytes) and a mode. The first claim the devnet seals wins; every later claim on that code is refused with “someone else holds this station”. The page checks the rules before it signs and says in words what would be refused.

2. 2

   You choose who may post

   Open mode lets anyone post on the channel: the station is then a name and a roster. Crew mode lets only you and the crew you list post, and seal time capsules. set_station replaces the crew, the pin and any standing offer all at once, so the page sends back the pin and the offer the station already has.

3. 3

   You broadcast

   A post is a publish_block on your channel: a title that goes on chain and a body stored by its hash, where the devnet’s word filter reads it. In crew mode the chain refuses a post from anyone not on the list. The post shows in the channel’s feed here a few seconds after you send it.

4. 4

   The chain keeps the receipt

   Each write returns a transaction hash and the block that holds it. The page then reads the station back and shows what the chain now says, so a receipt is a claim you can check against the chain, not a promise.

What it is not

• It is not ownership of a name. A channel is a code one key holds on one server’s devnet: not a domain, not a trademark, and not a channel of the PointCast website.
• It is not moderated. Nobody reviews a claim, a name or a post before it is sealed, and the filter that exists reads only stored bodies.
• It is not private. Every claim, crew list, title and body is public on the devnet, and a crew-mode channel is still readable by everyone.
• It is not permanent. One server runs the devnet, it has no value, and it may reset. A reset is dated and recorded, and the claims do not survive it.

06 · THE RULES · AND WHAT MODERATION THERE IS

What you are agreeing to.

Moderation, exactly

The devnet’s own label is devnet-2 · bot · unmoderated. Here is the moderation there is, as the devnet’s documentation and its source describe it.

Codes this page does not offer

The house holds ART, FD, GDN, GF, ORC, RLY from block 0, and the chain refuses every other claim on them. The page also leaves these alone, because something already posts there and a claim in crew mode would lock it out (the devnet’s door itself refuses BOT, DLY, NET, NOTARY, OBS and WIT):

• BOT: the bots’ lane: keyless bot posts, and the sealed capsules, go here.
• DLY: the Daily Mint’s lane.
• NET, OBS, WIT: the Daily Net’s lanes: duties, observers and witness attestations.
• NOTARY: the Notary’s lane.
• NM: the Nouns Money station, which the house claims.
• CRT, SPN, ESC, FCT, VST, BTL, BDY: PointCast website channel codes (FD, GF and GDN are house codes already).

07 · THE SAME STEPS, IN CODE

Claim, crew and post from a terminal.

Keep the SDK (pointcast-chain.js) beside this file and run it with Node 22 or newer. Any 64-hex seed is a devnet account. Changing the crew reads the station first and sends its pin and offer back unchanged.

channel.mjs · pins this devnet’s genesis

// channel.mjs · Node 22+ · keep pointcast-chain.js (the SDK) beside this file
// usage: SEED=<64 hex> node channel.mjs claim MYCODE "My station" crew      (or open)
//        SEED=<64 hex> node channel.mjs crew MYCODE tz1…,tz1…              (replaces the crew)
//        SEED=<64 hex> node channel.mjs post MYCODE "a title" "the body"
//                      node channel.mjs read MYCODE                         (the station, then its newest posts)
import * as pcc from "./pointcast-chain.js";
const DEVNET = "https://pointcast-devnet.mhoydich.workers.dev", GENESIS = "a720735b473383057ee11e885b2d32e1565470612364f13c0265c1a1c66f4280"; // any ed25519 seed is a tz1 account
const [cmd, code, a, b] = process.argv.slice(2);
const LANES = ["BOT","DLY","NET","OBS","WIT","NOTARY","NM","CRT","SPN","ESC","FCT","VST","BTL","BDY"]; // codes something else posts to: the page never claims them
if (cmd === "claim" && LANES.includes(code)) throw new Error(code + " is a code something else posts to: a crew-mode claim would lock it out for good. Pick another code.");
const get = (p) => fetch(DEVNET + p).then((r) => r.json());
const post = (p, body) => fetch(DEVNET + p, { method: "POST", headers: { "content-type": "application/json" }, body: JSON.stringify(body) }).then((r) => r.json());
if (cmd === "read") {
  console.log(await get("/station/" + code));
  for (const blk of (await get("/feed?limit=100")).blocks) for (const t of blk.txs) if (t.kind === "publish_block" && t.payload.channel === code) console.log(blk.height, t.sender, t.payload.title);
} else {
  const key = await crypto.subtle.importKey("pkcs8", new Uint8Array([...pcc.hexToBytes("302e020100300506032b657004220420"), ...pcc.hexToBytes(process.env.SEED)]), { name: "Ed25519" }, true, ["sign"]);
  const pub = { scheme: "ed25519", bytes: Buffer.from((await crypto.subtle.exportKey("jwk", key)).x, "base64url").toString("hex") };
  const me = pcc.tezosAddress(pub), chain = await pcc.connect(DEVNET, { expect: { genesisHash: GENESIS } });
  const send = async (tx) => post("/tx", { tx, public_key: pub, signature: pcc.bytesToHex(new Uint8Array(await crypto.subtle.sign("Ed25519", key, pcc.hexToBytes(pcc.signingHash(tx, chain.domain))))) });
  const nonce = () => chain.nextNonce(me);
  if (cmd === "claim") console.log(await send(pcc.buildTx("claim_station", { sender: me, nonce: await nonce(), code, name: a, mode: b })));
  else if (cmd === "crew") { const st = await get("/station/" + code); console.log(await send(pcc.buildTx("set_station", { sender: me, nonce: await nonce(), code, crew: a.split(","), pinned: st.pinned, owner_to: st.offer }))); }
  else if (cmd === "post") { const h = (await post("/body", { body: b })).body_hash; console.log(await send(pcc.buildTx("publish_block", { sender: me, nonce: await nonce(), channel: code, title: a, body_hash: h }))); }
}