2026 Summer Stage 4 — Amber Signer Login, Relay Cleanup & Login Hardening
🔑 Signer Login (Amber / NIP-46)
A new Signer tab in the Nostr login dialog supports cross-device pairing via NIP-46 (nostrconnect://). The NIP-46 flow is signer-agnostic, so it works with any remote NIP-46 signer — Amber, Primal, nsec.app, Keys.band, etc. A QR code is shown for easy mobile scanning.
🔐 Unified Signer Plumbing
Amber and nostrconnect logins are now wired into the shared signer utilities (useLoginActions, useCurrentUser, and signerUtils.getUserSigner()). Every existing code path that already used the unified signer for nsec, extension, or bunker logins now also works for signer-based logins. Several spots that still called window.nostr directly were updated to use the shared signer, including list utilities, dashboard Nostr utilities, post writing, and NIP-42 auth.
🌐 Relay Cleanup
Stale relays were removed from all relay lists and fallbacks across the dashboard, including relay.damus.io and wss://relay.nostr.net. Default search and publish relays now consistently use wss://nos.lol and wss://relay.primal.net. The shared NPool is cached at module level so bunker and nostrconnect logins reuse a single connection pool instead of opening fresh WebSocket connections on every signer call.
🛠️ Android & Older WebView Compatibility
Added an AbortSignal.any() polyfill for older Android WebViews that don't support it, which previously broke every nostrconnect login with AbortSignal.any is not a function. The Signer tab also reorders the login options to promote the reliable NIP-46 flow first, while the NIP-55 on-device flow is clearly marked experimental because Chrome's IntentDispatcher doesn't always return the redirect after Amber approval.
🏠 My Rooms Reliability
Fixed the My Rooms page rendering an empty list even when the signed-in user owned rooms. It now fetches kind 30312 events directly from the relay's /api/events endpoint and parses room fields from tags, avoiding the broken /api/rooms-by-pubkey route. Diagnostics were also added for unexpected response shapes so relay compatibility issues are visible instead of silently failing.
🧪 Testing & Infrastructure
Added a gsd-browser end-to-end test script that exercises Amber, nsec, and extension login plus signing round-trips against a local dev server. A scripts/BROWSER_TESTING.md guide documents what each test covers, how the transports are mocked, and the gotchas discovered while building the suite. A reverse proxy server was also added for public Amber testing routes.
🧹 Bug Fixes & Polish
- Fixed nostrconnect session race conditions and stale state when the login dialog is closed and reopened.
- Guarded all async login handlers against setState calls on unmounted components.
- Replaced the shared loading boolean with per-method loadingMethod state so a long Amber wait no longer disables the other login tabs.
- Deduplicated relay list constants and moved search relays to a single PUBLIC_SEARCH_RELAYS env variable.
- Added an accessible aria-label to the nostrconnect QR code.
- Restored the production start script and added start:proxy for the dev proxy server.
Special thanks to Contributors @Yeghro, @bitkarrot, Testers: @buttercuproberts, @DrShift, @Reed
#updates
2026 Summer Stage 3 — ICS Calendar event, Notifications, Room Management & Updates, Bug Fixes
🔔 Notifications & Updates
A notification bell now shows the latest HiveTalk announcements, with a new Updates page for browsing previous news. Unread state is now correctly baselined from first visit so the badge shows the right count.
📅 Add Calendar downloads
When an event is created on HiveTalk Dashboard, a .ics event is now available for download.
🔐 Room Status
Active rooms now show lock, lobby, and mute-on-join status icons with hover tooltips. Mute-on-join persists across rejoin so moderators always see the correct state.
🛡️ Clearer Room Permissions
Ephemeral rooms explain that moderator controls require a permanent room. Guests now always see a "You are a guest" notice regardless of room type, and ephemeral notices appear in the Moderation tab for all participants.
🗑️ Safer Room Deletion
Room deletion now requires typing the room name and cleans up associated room data. Owner token minting and cascade-delete ordering are fixed so cleanup succeeds reliably, with clearer failure messaging.
💬 Improved Chat Controls
The chat composer has cleaner controls, and messages can now be sent by pressing Enter.
🏠 HiveTalk Branding
The HiveTalk logo and wordmark now appear in the meeting settings panel.
📋 Automatic Release Notes
The "What's New" card now loads the latest published release notes automatically from GitHub.
🌐 Relay & Infrastructure
The default Nostr relay has been switched from relay.damus.io to relay.nostr.net across the codebase. LiveKit API proxies have been hardened with regression coverage, and responsive styles and room joins have been restored.
👤 Pre-Join & Username
New users see their pubkey prefix as a default username on the PreJoin page. Camera and mic selections from PreJoin are now preserved when entering the room. Fallback usernames no longer override edited names.
🧹 UI Cleanup
Stale "Latest Updates: May 2026" and "New · Lock, Lobby" badges have been removed. The broken Top Rooms link is hidden while the underlying endpoint is being fixed. Compact toasts have been restored.
🔒 Security
XSS mitigations added to Active Rooms tiles. Dependency vulnerabilities resolved. Allowed origins updated to support wildcard domains.
Special thanks to @Yeghro and @ButtercupRobrts
Release and Reviewer - @bitkarrot
#updates
Summer '26 Stage 2 release notes
Audience Mode, Reactions & Expandable Menu
🎭 Audience Mode + Raise Hand
Per-room audience mode toggle. Audience members get canPublish=false, canPublishData=true (they can chat/react but not broadcast audio/video). Stage members (owner/mod/promoted speakers) keep full publish grants. Promote/demote uses LiveKit UpdateParticipant for live grant changes with no reconnect, AND persists stage membership to DB so grants survive reconnect/refresh/token regen. Toggling audience mode mid-room iterates current participants and updates their grants live, with a broadcast data message for immediate UI sync.
✋ Raise Hand
lk.raisehand topic carries { event, participant_identity, pubkey?, display_name? } — LiveKit identity is used for tile mapping and promote actions, pubkey only for profile display. ✋ indicator on tiles + a moderator queue list in RoomControls with "Bring to stage" action. Twitter-Spaces-style layout: stage tiles in grid, audience as a compact avatar strip; verified on small mobile screens.
🎉 Emoji Reactions on Tiles
lk.reactions topic { emoji, participant_identity } renders a floating emoji overlay on the sender's tile that fades over ~4s. Client-side rate-limited. Reuses the EmojiPickerPopover from Stage 1 with a limited reaction set.
⌃ Expandable "^" Vertical Menu
New ExpandableMenu replaces the leave slot in the custom control bar. A chevron "^" expands upward into a vertical list: Raise Hand, Reactions (mini emoji popup), and Leave (red, destructive style). Sits above the video layer and transparent chat layer with top z-index; works within the existing mobile floating pill bar CSS.
special thanks to @buttercup @yeghro Sooly, Tomekk , Reed, Tigs and AJ for helping out with testing
#updates
Are you seeing the epic feature we’re bringing to Hivetalk?
Help us keep this FREE by helping is reach our July #ZapGoal at
HiveTalk
Hivetalk Honey Dashboard
HiveTalk Honey dashboard - Manage rooms, events, and connections
(Can’t zap? Repost to help us reach more people as we #grownostr 💜⚡️)
View quoted note →Damus Relay now removed from list of Hivetalk relays for profile searches.
If there is a WOT relay or similar relay for profile lookups you would prefer, please feel free to let us know what you'd like to have.
#updates
Summer '26 Stage 1 Release
Highlights for the current release! Out today!
⚡ Zap Notifications in Chat
When a participant zaps another participant, a structured ⚡ system entry appears in chat: "⚡ sender zapped recipient, N sats ⚡". Uses a dedicated lk.zap data topic with a typed payload — not parsed from chat text, so it can't be spoofed. Sender and recipient display names are plumbed from the participant tile through to the payment modal.
🔒 Lock/Unlock Disconnect & Toast Visibility
Reproduced and fixed the lock/unlock disconnect behavior live (two-browser test). Restyled the disconnect/reconnecting toast to amber/orange so transient connection states are clearly visible against the video layer.
😀 Emoji Picker in Chat
A small curated emoji popover in the chat input — inserts at cursor, no new dependency. Componentized as EmojiPickerPopover for reuse by Stage 2 reactions.
💾 Download Chat Transcript
Download icon in the chat header serializes the current chat to [HH:MM] Name: message lines and downloads as a .txt file. Room name is sanitized for the filename; falls back to hivetalk-chat-{date}.txt when no room name is available.
🔇 Mute Screenshare Audio (Per-Viewer)
Speaker toggle on the screenshare tile mutes ONLY the ScreenShareAudio publication for the local viewer — does not affect video, the mic track, or other participants. Mute state is tracked per participant + publication SID so it survives track re-publishes.
🛡️ Moderators Approve Lobby Joiners
Fixed the broken moderator lobby-approval flow. Root cause traced through the promote path — live LiveKit participant attributes now correctly reflect moderator="true", and mods can approve/deny lobby requests end-to-end. Regression test added.
special thanks to @buttercup and @yeghro
#updates
Hot fix for zaps not working from July 2
Special thanks to Jordi for finding this one!
Hot fix deployed for the 4 hour room bug.
Previously all rooms were closing at 1 hour.
Now permanent rooms are back to 4 hrs
#updates
We have 5 new releases in the works.
Every week there will be new hivetalk release,
new features, new updates, bug fixes, hot fix pushes.
keep your eyes peeled 👀, this is going to be the most aggressive push out for Q3 2026!
#updates
You asked for it, we delivered - Amber sign in !
If you're an Amber user and are up for some testing, please hit reply to this note and we'll set you up.
We'll continue with our weekly testing sessions next week.
Keep your eyes peeled as we start to push new releases every week. 🔥
#updates
Thanks to everyone who joined!
You can keep testing our new features at the link below, and if you like what we’re doing, don’t forget to help us reach our July #ZapGoal :)
Your #zaps keep this product free with new features being introduced to perfect it continuously.
Cheers! ⚡️💜⚡️
View quoted note →Changing the testing room for additional features. 🔥🎶
Join :
https://stagetwo.hivetalk.org/meet/hive
View quoted note →Hey bees!
We’re looking for some generous souls who want to help out testing Hivetalk.
Who are the epic bees who’re gonna join us?? 🐝🐝🐝
If we value something and we want it to thrive in the midst of tech giants with crooked incentives: We must fund the tools we want together.
In the case of Hivetalk, because SOME FUND IT, THE REST ENJOY IT FOR FREE.
Let's make it circular, fund today so others can enjoy, and tomorrow they will fund it for you to use it for free.
HiveTalk
Hivetalk Honey Dashboard
HiveTalk Honey dashboard - Manage rooms, events, and connections
What do you want in Hivetalk?
Suggest features, help us reach our #ZapGoal, we build. No committees, just communities supporting each other!
HiveTalk
Hivetalk Honey Dashboard
HiveTalk Honey dashboard - Manage rooms, events, and connections
We strive to build the Hivetalk that our swarm funds.
More features you requested are already in the making... :)
Grants come with strings attached and a whole lot of KYCing, so we'd rather rely on providing value for our community :)
Not all people are punctual, but you may not want to leave the room open once you start a class, a webinar, a talk... That's what lobbys are for.
Anyone who wants to join can still be let it whenever the host or moderators let them in :)
