Heirloom
A chat where membership is a key you hold.
The idea
A key is membership. To add someone, you hand them a key. To remove them, you take it back.
How it works
Start a chat. Register your own FIDO2 hardware key as the founder. Hand keys to the people you want in. They tap, choose a name, they’re in.
Why it’s like this
Physical custody means no spam invites, no leaked invite links, no bots. Inviting someone takes effort. That’s the point.
Questions
What if I lose a key?
Treat it like a key to a house. If a founder still has an admin key, they can revoke the lost one and issue a new one. If every key to a chat is lost, the chat is closed. We can’t recover it for you.
Can a key be cloned?
No. FIDO2 keys generate credentials inside the hardware and the private key never leaves the device. That’s the whole reason we use them.
What does Heirloom store?
Messages, chat membership, and the public credentials registered by each key. No phone numbers, no email harvesting, no contact graphs. We store what we need to host the chat, and nothing else we don’t.