A bot — a group member for AI and your own systems

An NCraft bot is a group member just like a person: its own identity, its own seat in the group, the same journal. It is always online and is driven not by a screen but by REST — by a person, an AI assistant or your task system.

What it does

• BotApi v1 — the same core method vocabulary the browser uses: groups, members, notes, tasks, messages, topics, unread.
• A bot cannot add or revoke devices, create, restore or forget an identity, or reveal the 24 words.
• MCP bridge nb_bot — for assistants such as Claude Code and Codex: health, methods, call a method, events.
• A task-system go-between: a direct conversation with the bot, @nickname, a task assigned to the bot, answers to the system's questions.
• A "Bot" label in the member list and the chat.

How to connect

• The owner invites it: a 26-character code, the bot knocks, both sides compare six digits — exactly as with a person.
• Bot settings for the owner: status, task system (the key goes to the bot), logic profiles, bot rights, bot logs.
• Add a bot → Already on a server — an invite window with the commands for your server (see "Linux" below); the bot's version and "a newer one is out" are in the bot's window. On macOS (including the App Store build) and iPhone; Windows and Android — later.
• Install a bot on your server over ssh: a signed release checked with sha256, setup, joining by code. Hosts: Linux, macOS, Windows. Website builds only — App Store and Microsoft Store builds don't include it.
• The bot's REST listens on 127.0.0.1 only and requires a token.

Linux

The bot for Linux is the ncraft package from the https://dl.ncraft.live/apt repository (Debian and Ubuntu, amd64 and arm64). Help on the server: man ncraft.

Install. Add the repository and install the package:

sudo curl -fsSL https://dl.ncraft.live/apt/ncraft.gpg -o /usr/share/keyrings/ncraft.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ncraft.gpg] https://dl.ncraft.live/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ncraft.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install ncraft

The package installs the ncraft program, the nb-bot systemd service and the nbbot system user. Installing doesn't start the service: the bot gets its identity on the first ncraft join.

Joining a group.

1. In NCraft, open the group menu, choose "Invite a person" and copy the invite code. Only the group owner can invite a bot.
2. On the server, run sudo ncraft join <code>. The first time, the command creates the bot (default name "NCraft Bot", another one with --name <name>) and starts the service.
3. The command prints six digits. Compare them with the digits in the invite window and answer "yes" only if they match: the digits protect you from anyone who has seen the code. Then confirm in the app.

For another group, run sudo ncraft join again with that group's code.

Owner. The bot's owner is the owner of the first group it joined: only they change the bot's settings from the app. To change the owner, run sudo -u nbbot ncraft owner --dir /var/lib/nb-bot --person <key> (the person's identity key, 64 hex characters), then restart the service. The owner and system commands run as the nbbot user: the service can't read files written by root.

Service. systemctl status nb-bot — whether the bot is running; journalctl -u nb-bot — the log: event kinds only, no message content; ncraft version — the version. The bot's data lives in /var/lib/nb-bot, readable only by the nbbot user; back it up with the server.

Updating. sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade installs the new version and restarts the running service.

Removing. sudo apt remove ncraft stops the service and keeps the bot's identity and data — you can install it again. sudo apt purge ncraft erases the identity and data too: the bot can't be restored after that. Remove it from your groups in the app.

Status

The bot from apt has been checked live: install, joining the owner's group, update, removal. Bot builds for installing over ssh (Linux, macOS, Windows) are downloaded from asia.ncraft.live and verified by signature.