Homegate

A backend service to gatekeep Pubky Homeserver signups.

The Pubky social media app uses Homegate to gatekeep signups. Check out https://pubky.app/onboarding/human (use a private browser window if you have an active session).

This service depends on

• Prelude as a SMS service provider.
• PhoenixD As a Lightning Payment provider.

Usage

See .env.example for a description of which values you need to put in a .env file.

Then:

cargo run

Warning

This code generates a secret which is written to local disk at /.homegate/pepper.txt.

If this value is lost then you lose the ability to match phone numbers which have been already verified to phone numbers of new verification requests - this is turn means that the verification limits will not be enforced.

SMS Verification

We use Prelude for SMS verification. Keep in mind that each phone number:

• Has a maximum of 10 verifications.
• Has a single pending verification at a time. Multiple send_code calls reuse the existing session.

Lightning Payment Verification

We use phoenixd for Lightning Payment verifications.

Running Tests

Tests require a PostgreSQL connection string for database integration tests:

# Run all tests
DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/pubky_homegate?pubky-test=true cargo test

# Run only E2E HTTP tests
DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/pubky_homegate?pubky-test=true cargo test --lib e2e::

Test Structure

• Unit Tests: IP extraction logic (src/http_server/routes/sms_verification.rs)
• Service Tests: Business logic and database operations (src/sms_verification/tests.rs)
• E2E Tests: Full HTTP integration tests (src/e2e/)