lemon3 is a file-sharing system that uses IPFS and Farcaster.
Check out lemon3: Farcaster+IPFS = Decentralized RSS enclosures and file sharing about the name, the idea and what's next.
UPDATE, 2025-06-15: lemon3 was initially released in March 2025. It was a proof-of-concept
verison, that worked, but I had made various development decisions that eventually blocked me. So,
3 months later, I decided to implement the same idea from scratch. The repo history has been deleted
and this is a totally new codebase.
- Binaries: pre-built binaries
- Source: Clone the repo, and run
make. Copy the generated binarieslemon3to a location in your $PATH. - macOS/Homebrew:
brew install vrypan/tap/lemon3
Use lemon3 --help to see all options.
Keep in mind that you will need access to a snapchain node and an IPFS node (for most users, the IPFS Desktop app is the simplest choice for this).
Future versions will try to bundle these components with lemon3.
lemon3 upload cnApr14.mp3 \
--title="Answers for Shel Israel about the origins of blogging and RSS" \
--description="An episode of Morning Coffee Notes posted on April 14, 2005
\"Music and Red Couch answers about blogging, RSS, and who knows whatnot.\"
Dave answers questions sent in by Shel Israel. He discusses his history with blogging and the origins of RSS. He started blogging in the late 1990s as a way to communicate with a community he had created, and saw blogging as a way to bypass the traditional media that he felt did not accurately represent the software he was developing. Dave was an early pioneer of RSS, working with Netscape to create a standard format, and he describes the process of collaborating with them to establish RSS as the dominant syndication format. He reflects on the challenges of establishing standards and the importance of being open to adopting others' ideas rather than stubbornly pushing one's own.
Source: https://mcn.archive.podnews.net/cnapr14.html" \
--artwork=artwork2.png \
--cast="Dave Winer has influenced the way I see the Internet, the Web, and software development in general. Listening to this episode from 2005, reminded me why."
Output:
[^] Uploading cnApr14.mp3: 100.0% (cid=QmPAnBDf2CHxNJeVKq1nepDXrTkn7MwRnVWjeofhtrhzES)
[+] QmPAnBDf2CHxNJeVKq1nepDXrTkn7MwRnVWjeofhtrhzES pinned.
[^] Uploading artwork2.png: 100.0% (cid=QmPSfzSKnRDnTj2FJoNRPLC3iKaK1BbTNRkF6QLbPKd9zL)
[+] QmPSfzSKnRDnTj2FJoNRPLC3iKaK1BbTNRkF6QLbPKd9zL pinned.
[^] Metadata cid=bafyreigssoonfshbr6pxzbqjgbt7hmluy7fziuzu3wynysnxyalihxt4be
[+] bafyreigssoonfshbr6pxzbqjgbt7hmluy7fziuzu3wynysnxyalihxt4be pinned.
[^] Cast posted: @vrypan.eth/0xcd3141a47b98685c292b55c44f932e221753e51b
And here is the result: https://farcaster.xyz/vrypan.eth/0xcd3141a47b98685c292b55c44f932e221753e51b
You can also check this one for video embeds: https://farcaster.xyz/fc1/0xbbcba55feeef8b522843b1d73c8f9dec3a2f4f7a
lemon3 download @fc1/0x4ff0e439bb795f98b1970217e6ad4e1a56e048fa
[↓] Downloading plan9_from_outer_space.mp4 from QmXokMFSAa4KL12nx66RzLeUPpvJs3ghD9fAGnrbCKiHWZ...
[✓] Downloaded 773495003 / 773495003 bytes (100.0%)
[✓] Saved as plan9_from_outer_space.mp4
lemon3 downloadfeed @fc1
[↓] Downloading plan9_from_outer_space.mp4 from QmXokMFSAa4KL12nx66RzLeUPpvJs3ghD9fAGnrbCKiHWZ...
[✓] Downloaded 773495003 / 773495003 bytes (100.0%)
[↓] Downloading cnApr14.mp3 from QmPAnBDf2CHxNJeVKq1nepDXrTkn7MwRnVWjeofhtrhzES...
[✓] Downloaded 13622625 / 13622625 bytes (100.0%)
[↓] Downloading The Man Who Knew Too Much.mp4 from Qme7tFJFeBZqbSudoom8xKA1FNXoUkUhBt8ygPWXoE3LQV...
[✓] Downloaded 562829407 / 562829407 bytes (100.0%)
[↓] Downloading CC_1916_07_10_TheVagabond.mp4 from QmP46kY1hyyzZEF9sWUXxjHpP1kr7dRpbuYazDV8Wx6yzF...
[✓] Downloaded 150003982 / 150003982 bytes (100.0%)
[↓] Downloading CC_1916_07_10_TheVagabond.mp4 from QmP46kY1hyyzZEF9sWUXxjHpP1kr7dRpbuYazDV8Wx6yzF...
[✓] Downloaded 150003982 / 150003982 bytes (100.0%)
And this is my download dir
ls -l ~/Desktop/lemon3/fc1/
total 2958976
-rw-r--r--@ 1 vrypan staff 150003982 Jun 20 22:38 CC_1916_07_10_TheVagabond.mp4
-rw-r--r--@ 1 vrypan staff 13622625 Jun 20 22:38 cnApr14.mp3
-rw-r--r--@ 1 vrypan staff 773495003 Jun 20 22:38 plan9_from_outer_space.mp4
-rw-r--r--@ 1 vrypan staff 562829407 Jun 20 22:38 The Man Who Knew Too Much.mp4