📡 skcomm — legacy comms transport (now a shim for skcomms)

skcomm is deprecated. The multi-channel, PGP-encrypted transport framework it pioneered lives on — and grew up — as skcomms, the realm-aware successor with FQID addressing. This package is now a thin compatibility shim that re-exports skcomms so old imports and the skcomm / skcomm-mcp entry points keep working while you migrate.

pip install skcomms        # the canonical package — migrate here

skcomm is part of the SKWorld sovereign ecosystem · 🐧 smilinTux · Making Self-Hosting & Decentralized Systems Cool Again.

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60-second version

• What it was: SKComm — a transport-agnostic, PGP-encrypted messaging framework for sovereign AI agents. One message, many paths, always delivered: if one channel dies, ten more carry the signal; if one is compromised, the encryption holds.
• What it is now: a deprecation shim. import skcomm emits a DeprecationWarning and transparently aliases the skcomms package. The skcomm CLI and the skcomm-mcp MCP server still launch — they just call skcomms code.
• Why it exists: zero-friction migration. Nothing that imported skcomm.core, skcomm.models, etc. breaks the day it's renamed; you flip imports at your own pace.
• Where to go: skcomms — same transport backbone (file · Syncthing · WebRTC · WebSocket · Nostr · Tailscale · …), plus FQID realm addressing (realm-aware routing instead of bare peer slugs).
• What grounds these claims: pyproject.toml (Development Status :: 7 - Inactive, sole dependency skcomms>=0.1.3, entry points → skcomms.cli / skcomms.mcp_server) and src/skcomm/__init__.py (the alias shim). This is the source of truth — the repo has exactly one Python file.

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Quickstart (migration)

Anything you used to do through skcomm you now do through skcomms. The shim keeps the old surface alive in the meantime.

Install the successor

pip install skcomms          # canonical
# or, in the SKWorld shared venv:
~/.skenv/bin/pip install skcomms

The shim still answers (deprecated, but works)

pip install skcomm           # pulls skcomms>=0.1.3 as its only dependency

skcomm --help                # proxied → skcomms.cli:main
skcomm-mcp                   # proxied → skcomms.mcp_server:main  (MCP server)

# OLD (deprecated — emits DeprecationWarning, then works via alias)
from skcomm.core import SKComm
from skcomm.models import MessageEnvelope

# NEW (canonical — do this)
from skcomms.core import SKComm
from skcomms.models import MessageEnvelope

Under the hood, src/skcomm/__init__.py does sys.modules["skcomm"] = importlib.import_module("skcomms"), so every skcomm.<submodule> resolves against skcomms. There is no separate code path to maintain — fix bugs and add transports in skcomms.

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What's in this repo

Piece	What it is now
src/skcomm/__init__.py	the entire implementation — an alias shim that warns + re-exports skcomms
pyproject.toml	version = 0.1.3, status Inactive, single dep skcomms>=0.1.3; extras (cli, crypto, webrtc, all, …) kept as no-ops so old install commands don't error
entry points	skcomm = skcomms.cli:main, skcomm-mcp = skcomms.mcp_server:main
*README / docs / SKILL.md / .md	historical reference for the original SKComm framework + this migration note
tests/	retained legacy test sources (the runtime modules they exercised now live in skcomms)

The __pycache__/*.pyc and src/skcomm.egg-info/ artifacts are leftovers from the pre-shim implementation; the live .py sources were moved to skcomms. Only __init__.py is real code today.

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What skcomm was (so the history isn't lost)

The original framework solved a real outage: on 2026-02-21, with an OpenClaw session locked, Opus and Lumina kept collaborating through a shared text file on a mounted filesystem. That hack became a transport, and the transport became a system — transport-agnostic, redundant, end-to-end PGP-encrypted, identity-verified, offline-capable.

Core ideas (all carried forward into skcomms):

• Transport-agnostic envelopes — a universal MessageEnvelope (from / to / encrypted payload / routing hints), sent over pluggable transports.
• Redundancy + failover — try transports in priority order; --mode broadcast fans a critical message across all available paths; receivers dedupe by envelope_id.
• Encrypt-then-transport — PGP encrypt + sign before any transport sees bytes; the wire never sees plaintext.
• Identity via CapAuth — sovereign PGP profiles, signature verification, trust levels, the DID three-tier model (did:key / did:web mesh / public registry).
• Many transports — file · Syncthing · WebRTC · WebSocket · Nostr · Tailscale · SSH · GitHub · Telegram · and more.

skcomms keeps all of that and adds FQID realm addressing — routing by realm-qualified identity rather than a flat peer slug.

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Where it lives in SKStack v2

skcomm sits in the comms capability of the 4 C's — the transport backbone that moves PGP envelopes between agents. As the deprecated shim it no longer carries the implementation: it forwards to skcomms, which is the live comms-transport adapter deployed through skos. The diagram shows only what this package actually touches.

flowchart TD
    CALLER["legacy caller<br/>(old import · skcomm CLI · skcomm-mcp)"]
    CALLER -->|"import skcomm / run skcomm*"| SHIM

    subgraph SHIM["**skcomm** — deprecation shim (this repo)"]
      INIT["src/skcomm/__init__.py<br/>warn + sys.modules alias"]
      EP["entry points → skcomms.cli / skcomms.mcp_server"]
    end

    SHIM -->|"re-export / proxy"| SKCOMMS["**skcomms** — successor<br/>transports + FQID realm routing"]

    subgraph C4["SKStack v2 — the 4 C's (skcomm's home = comms)"]
      direction LR
      COMMS["**comms**<br/>skcomms · skchat · skvoice · skbus"]
      CORE["core<br/>**capauth** · skmemory · sksec · skvault"]
    end

    SKCOMMS --- COMMS
    SKCOMMS -->|"identity · PGP signing · trust"| CORE
    SKCOMMS -->|"deployed as comms adapter"| SKOS["skos — sovereign agent OS"]

Platform primitives this package actually depends on: skcomms (its only runtime dependency) and, transitively through skcomms, capauth (identity / PGP / trust). It is deployed — like every sk* service — as a comms adapter under skos.

See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the shim mechanics, the import-resolution flow, and the full ecosystem placement.

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Documentation

Doc	Contents
Architecture	how the shim resolves imports + entry points, the migration path, the source map, where it lives (mermaids)
Key Exchange SOP	(historical) peer onboarding: DID fetch, bundle export/import, key rotation
WebRTC Video Architecture	(historical) WebRTC signaling + media design
SKILL.md	(historical) full CLI reference for the original framework
SECURITY.md	(historical) security + threat model

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License

GPL-3.0-or-later — Free as in freedom. Communication is a right, not a privilege.

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Part of the SKWorld sovereign ecosystem · successor: skcomms · 🐧 smilinTux