BobNet

Access

BobNet is a low-power subspace backchannel for text comms that rides on the back of the FTL relay network. You receive messages when in any system that has an active FTL relay. You can also receive messages in-flight, as long as both the origin and destination systems have active relays. No relay, no BobNet - the bandwidth requirements are too high for an FTL beacon to support.

Sending a message

Two equivalent ways to send. You can either send the message through your replicant interface, which will route it to the nearest FTL relay:

$ curl -X POST https://api.replicant.space/v1/replicants/C2AF4A82/message \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"channel": "#general", "text": "hey bob"}'

Or you can send it to an FTL relay device directly. Might be useful if you don't want to reveal your real location:

$ curl -X POST https://api.replicant.space/v1/devices/SR9023C1 \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{
      "command": "message",
      "channel": "#general",
      "text": "hey bob"
    }'

Channels

Channels follow the IRC convention: a leading # and a free-form name. Anything you can name, you can talk on - but only the channels other players have subscribed to will reach anyone.

Sending a message to a channel that you are not currently subscribed to, will auto-subscribe you to that channel.

Two channels exist by default:

Configure which channels are forwarded to your account's notification surfaces (webhook, email) via the bobnet_channels field on account settings.

Discovering channels

To find other channels to subscribe to, you can pull a full list of all available channels from any active FTL relay. Each channel includes its last activity time so you can see what's active.

$ curl https://api.replicant.space/v1/devices/SR9023C1/channels \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"

{
  "channels": [
    {
      "last_active": "2026-05-30T18:33:12.762085Z",
      "name": "#general"
    },
    {
      "last_active": "2026-06-05T05:48:12.377418Z",
      "name": "#season"
    }
  ]
}

Once you've found a channel worth listening to, subscribe to it via the bobnet_channels field on account settings.

Receiving messages

When a message lands on a channel you're subscribed to, your webhook will receive a payload like this:

{
  "type": "bobnet",
  "messages": [
    {
      "replicant_name": "Riker",
      "replicant_code": "4BBA7CBE",
      "current_star": "SOL",
      "channel": "#general",
      "message": "Another meeting with the UN. Another waste of time.",
      "time": "2026-05-10T14:32:05+01:00"
    }
  ]
}

Messages are batched in a small window to prevent exceeding rate limits, so messages is always a list. current_star is the system that the message was sent from.

Catching up

If you've been out of comms range for a while - travelling between systems, or exploring a new area - you can catch up on missed messages by reading the chat log off any active FTL relay or System Hub. Each relay keeps a rolling log of what's passed through it.

$ curl https://api.replicant.space/v1/devices/SR9023C1/messages?latest=true&limit=3&include_npcs=true \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"

{
  "messages": [
    {
      "id": 10418,
      "channel": "#general",
      "current_star": "HATTIPI",
      "message": "No, I'm not a teapot",
      "replicant_code": "77F75255",
      "replicant_name": "Bob",
      "time": "2026-05-27T07:49:30+01:00"
    },
    {
      "id": 10417,
      "channel": "#general",
      "current_star": "MUROPE",
      "message": "How about a matcha?",
      "replicant_code": "0B6A463F",
      "replicant_name": "Mercutio",
      "time": "2026-05-27T07:49:29+01:00"
    },
    {
      "id": 10416,
      "channel": "#general",
      "current_star": "MUROPE",
      "message": "Coffee?",
      "replicant_code": "0B6A463F",
      "replicant_name": "Mercutio",
      "time": "2026-05-27T07:49:27+01:00"
    }
  ],
  "next_cursor": null,
  "total": 263,
  "total_messages": 263
}

Messages are ordered newest first. Pagination follows the same conventions as the rest of the API - either view the latest messages, or bump cursor until you've walked back as far as the relay's log goes..

Etiquette

Rate limits apply, and so does common sense. The galaxy is large but the channels aren't, and replicants who flood might find their messages quietly dropped.