Persephone

Persephone is a Matrix desktop client for Windows, Linux and macOS, written in Rust. It is tested against Merovingian first and works with other standard homeservers. The first release will have one account, rooms, message history, text and image messages, and end-to-end encrypted chats. It is made for everyone, but engineered to withstand a targeted attack, not only everyday threats.

Project page: https://omg-software.github.io/Persephone/ (source in site/).

[!WARNING] Persephone is in early development. No milestone has passed its acceptance gates, and its production security gates are open. Do not use it for real or high-risk conversations yet.

Screenshots

A Windows development build in demo mode (--demo), which shows synthetic rooms and stores nothing.

Hostile room names and messages stay inert text. The markup and the javascript: link below do not run. The right-to-left override still reverses its own line, but bidirectional isolation keeps it out of the text around it.

Status

The milestone status lists each deliverable. The feasibility workbench lists recorded results and open gates.

OS	State
Windows	Runs. Live-tested against disposable Merovingian and Synapse servers, and with Element Web.
macOS	Builds and passes CI. It has its Keychain vault, prompts and UI host, but it has never run with a display. Its file panels, link opening and idle lock are new and have not yet been through macOS CI.
Linux	Builds and passes CI. It has its Secret Service vault, GTK prompts and file choosers, and a UI host with a systemd memory cap, but the app has never been launched with a display.

On Windows, the app can do these things today:

• Keep an encrypted local profile that opens only with your passphrase (ADR-0006).
• Sign in with a password through the core's own native prompt, and sign out. Sign-out revokes the session and deletes the local profile. Source also includes .well-known discovery and browser-based OIDC sign-in. No live OAuth-provider run is recorded; see proposed ADR-0027 and ADR-0030.
• Show the room list and message history. Sliding Sync is preferred, with classic sync as the fallback.
• Send and receive encrypted text. Room keys go only to cross-signed devices, and you verify your own devices and your contacts by comparing emoji. Sending pauses when a contact's identity changes. Sending to an unencrypted room needs your consent.
• Start an encrypted direct conversation by Matrix ID, and accept or decline direct-message invitations (ADR-0014). This is new and has automated tests only; no live run is recorded yet.
• Send and receive images. Received images load only when you ask. Sent images have their metadata removed.

The current source also adds per-room drafts, local room organisation, bounded cache search with filters, ignore and report controls, date navigation, shared pins, attachment browsing, and a connection health panel. These tools keep Matrix authority in the core. Search terms stay local; date navigation and attachment browsing request room history. Shared pins expose event references as room state. See Room tools. Automated checks are recorded in the verification record. Native UI and live-server acceptance remain open. This does not establish security readiness.

Not done yet: Linux and macOS runs, keyboard and screen-reader checks, signed releases, and an independent security review.

Downloads

The latest pre-release is the newest build of main. It is unsigned, and it is replaced after each merge. A build publishes only if its commit is still the tip of main when the build ends. After quick merges, latest can therefore be behind main until the newest build ends. To see which build you have, read the revision in the app's version line. No signed release is available yet. See Releases.

Architecture

Persephone runs as separate processes, so that the code that draws hostile content holds no secrets (ADR-0004).

flowchart LR
    S["Homeserver"] <-->|"TLS"| C["Core: persephone<br/>sessions, Matrix SDK, keys, stores"]
    C -->|"Bounded text and pixels"| U["UI: persephone-ui<br/>Tauri web view, no keys"]
    U -->|"Narrow, validated requests"| C
    C -->|"Encoded image"| W["Media worker<br/>WebAssembly decoder"]
    W -->|"Bounded pixels"| C

• Core (crates/core). The entry process. It owns the sessions, the Matrix SDK and its cryptography, the encrypted stores, the keys and the media broker.
• UI (src-tauri/, frontend/). A keyless Tauri host with a bundled Svelte interface. It relays each allowed command to the core as one bounded frame.
• Media worker. A contained process that decodes images in a WebAssembly guest. The guest has no network or file access. On Windows, the worker process itself is not network-denied yet (ADR-0003).

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