Connect your repository
Connecting is how Glitr learns which mailbox is yours. Until you connect, there is nothing to send from and nothing to sync.
You will enter a git URL, credentials that can write, an encryption password, and — on the web — a CORS proxy.
What “connect” actually does
On success, Glitr:
- Clones the repository into a local working copy (in the browser this lives in origin-private storage on that device; on desktop it is a folder).
- Unlocks encrypted documents with your password, or prepares to create them.
- Ensures the messaging layout exists (profile, contacts, outbound, inbox, sent, receipts, signaling). An empty repo is bootstrapped.
- Starts background sync: commit and push your own repo; fetch contact clones on a timer.
Refresh on the web, while this tab still has credentials, reconnects without the form. It decrypts the local copy and shows chats immediately; sync continues in the background.
Logout wipes the local own-repo and contact clones and clears credentials. The remote repository is not deleted. The next visit clones fresh.
The fields
Git URL
The HTTPS URL of your repository. Example shape: https://host.example/you/glitr-mailbox.git.
Use HTTPS, not SSH. The app talks to git over HTTP(S) from the browser or the desktop helper. SSH keys in ~/.ssh are not used here.
One person, one mailbox. Do not connect two identities to the same URL.
Username and access token
The username is whatever the host expects (often your host username, sometimes git or oauth2). The token is a personal access token (or deploy token) with:
- Read access to the repository (clone, fetch).
- Write access to contents (push /
git-receive-pack).
A token that can only read will let you open old chats and still fail every send. The app records write denied rather than pretending the push worked.
Treat the token like a password. Glitr keeps it on the device for the session. We do not have a server that stores it.
Encryption password
This password derives the key that seals documents in the repository. It is not the git host password.
- Choose something you can repeat on every device you use.
- If you forget it, the encrypted documents in the repo will not open. There is no reset email.
- Changing it later means you must be able to decrypt with the old password first; do not experiment on the only copy of a conversation you care about.
The password does not encrypt everything in the repo. Coordination files such as read receipts and live-handshake envelopes are intentionally readable enough to do their job. Details: What is encrypted vs what a host can see.
CORS proxy (web only)
Browsers refuse direct git HTTP to most hosts (missing CORS headers). A proxy forwards those requests.
The app offers a public default suitable for trying Glitr. It is not a privacy boundary: the proxy sees git HTTP traffic. For anything you rely on, run a proxy you control, or use a desktop build that talks to git without a browser CORS proxy.
If login fails only on the web, the proxy is the first thing to check.
After you connect
Open Profile. Confirm the display name and that Your repo URL is the URL you intend to share. That string is your address. Give it to people the way you would give a phone number — only to people you want writing into a relationship with that mailbox.
Then add a contact, or follow Your first conversation if you are pairing with someone in the same sitting.
Reconnecting later
Same device, same browser profile, still logged in: refresh is enough.
New device: Move to another device — same URL, same token (or a new token), same encryption password.