A frozen spec is only meaningful if it's paired with the corpus that was current at release time — otherwise a v0.1.0 reader follows "see corpus/payloads/ack/" and lands on a file whose test vectors may have changed since v0.1.0 was cut. Three changes: 1. `cut-version` now copies BOTH src/ AND corpus/ into the snapshot directory. A release is the pair, not just the text. 2. The corpus URL rewriting in cut-version now retargets /tree/main/corpus -> /tree/main/versions/<v>/corpus (and the blob variant). This lets the link resolve on GitHub from main alone — no git tag required, since the frozen copy is a real path under main. Downgrades the "tag is REQUIRED" message from last commit back to "optionally tag the commit". 3. The frozen corpus's spec_ref fields get rewritten too: from `src/04-payload-ack.md` to `versions/<v>/04-payload-ack.md`, so a reader following a test vector lands on the spec text the vector was paired with at release time. versions/v0.1.0/ regenerated from scratch via `just cut-version v0.1.0` to pick up the corpus snapshot + the new sed patterns. The release is now self-consistent: v0.1.0 spec links go to v0.1.0 corpus, which links back to v0.1.0 spec. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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MeshCore Protocol Specification
Section 8: Payload — Group (GRP_TXT / GRP_DATA)
Overview
Group payloads enable encrypted communication within a channel. All members of a channel share a symmetric secret. The payload begins with a 1-byte channel hash (derived from the channel's shared key), followed by an encrypt-then-MAC blob.
Payload Types
| Value | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x05 | GRP_TXT | Group text message |
| 0x06 | GRP_DATA | Group datagram (binary data) |
Wire Format
0
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|channel_hash(1)| Cipher MAC (2 bytes) | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
| Ciphertext (N × 16 bytes, N ≥ 1) |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Fields
| Field | Offset | Size | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| channel_hash | 0 | 1 byte | raw | First byte of SHA-256(channel_shared_key) |
| cipher_mac | 1 | 2 bytes | raw | Truncated HMAC-SHA256 over ciphertext |
| ciphertext | 3 | variable (multiple of 16) | raw | AES-128-ECB encrypted data |
Minimum Size
- Minimum payload: 1 + 2 + 16 = 19 bytes
Channel Hash Derivation
The channel_hash is the first byte of the SHA-256 hash of the channel's 32-byte shared key (PUB_KEY_SIZE bytes):
channel_hash = SHA256(channel_shared_key)[0]
This means hash collisions are expected (1 in 256 chance). When a receiver finds a matching channel_hash, it attempts decryption with each matching channel's secret. Only a successful MAC verification confirms the correct channel.
Encryption
- Encrypt plaintext using AES-128-ECB with first 16 bytes of the channel's shared key (GroupChannel.secret).
- Compute HMAC-SHA256 over ciphertext using all 32 bytes of the channel's shared key. Truncate to 2 bytes.
- Assemble: channel_hash || MAC || ciphertext.
Decryption
- Read channel_hash (1 byte).
- Search local channel database for channels with matching hash. Multiple channels may match (up to 4 in reference implementation).
- For each matching channel, attempt MAC verification and decryption using the channel's shared key.
- The first channel that produces a valid MAC yields the correct decryption.
Cross-References
- Section 14: Cryptography — Encrypt-then-MAC
- Test vectors:
corpus/payloads/group/
Reference Implementation
Mesh::createGroupDatagram()insrc/Mesh.cpp— EncodingMesh::onRecvPacket(), casesPAYLOAD_TYPE_GRP_TXT/GRP_DATA— DecodingMesh::searchChannelsByHash()— Channel lookup