Hyaecord

A performance-focused, native-feeling Discord desktop client for Linux and Windows.

Hyaecord is an original Discord desktop client that implements a compatibility layer for the Equicord and Vencord plugin ecosystems, alongside desktop-native visual integration, event-driven resource management, and accessibility features. It is not a fork of either codebase, and it does not include or redistribute Discord's proprietary client code or assets.

You can join our Discord server for commits, changes, chatting, or support.

Contents

• Features
• Feature Parity Checklist
• Installation & Setup
• Building from Source
• Technical Specifications
• Contributing
• Credits
• Star History
• Disclaimer & Legal
• License

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Features

Hyaecord is early alpha. The list below is deliberately honest about what's actually built versus still planned — see the Feature Parity Checklist for the unvarnished per-feature status, updated as things ship rather than written up front and left stale.

Multi-Platform

• Stoat.chat support: a real, separate integration talking to Stoat's own public REST/WebSocket API (api.stoat.chat, events.stoat.chat) — not a guess, verified against Stoat's own published OpenAPI spec and protocol docs. Real and working today: login (embedded stoat.chat page, same trustworthy pattern as Discord's), servers/channels/DMs, real per-server members and presence, friends (including accept/decline/remove), reading and sending messages with live updates, editing/deleting your own messages, reactions, attachments (viewing and sending), pinned messages, channel search, typing indicators, kicking/banning members, blocking/unblocking users, and creating/deleting channels. Connect an account from Settings → Accounts; a "Merge accounts into one sidebar" toggle shows Discord and Stoat servers together, each with a small platform badge, or lets you view one platform at a time. Not built yet: voice (Stoat's real transport is LiveKit, its own project the same way Discord's real voice transport is), Fluxer support, bots/webhooks, MFA, and content reporting. See BUILD_PROMPT.md for the exact, itemized history of what shipped and why.

Ecosystem & Plugins

• A real plugin API, sandboxed via Node vm with a restricted API surface — ergonomically modeled on Vencord's definePlugin shape so a simple message-hook plugin ports easily, but not a byte-compatible runner for existing Equicord/Vencord plugin files (those patch Discord's real webpack bundle, which this client's original GUI doesn't have). See Plugin Guidelines and src/main/plugins/ for exactly what's supported today.
• Bundled plugins ported from Equicord/Vencord: TalkInReverse, WriteUpperCase, Signature, PolishWording (partial), GoogleThat, and SendTimestamps (partial) are real, from-scratch reimplementations of those plugins' behaviour, each shown in Settings with an attribution badge linking back to the original. SendTimestamps is Vencord-original and bundled into Equicord, so it shows both; WriteUpperCase, Signature, PolishWording, and GoogleThat show both too — the plugin code itself only ever shipped in Equicord's repo, but each credits at least one Vencord-affiliated author, so the badge reflects both projects; TalkInReverse is the only genuinely Equicord-exclusive one (Equicord-only code, Equicord-only credited author). See PLUGIN_PARITY.md for a full audit of Equicord's entire 361-plugin catalogue — what's ported, what's plausible, and what's architecturally impossible and why.
• GlobalBadges, UserPFP, UsrBG, RPC Bridge: all four are live, not just Settings toggles — real community-database avatar/banner overrides, and a real local Rich Presence socket for external apps. See the checklist below.
• Plugin policy: Strict no-paywall rule with support for creator donation links. See Plugin Guidelines.

Desktop Integration & Visuals

• Native OS look and feel: Interfaces designed around GTK4/Libadwaita and KDE Plasma visual standards rather than generic web containers.
• Automatic DE theme matching: Auto-detects GNOME and KDE theme settings on launch, with support for manual overrides.
• Theme Store: WCAG AA-compliant Light and Dark themes built in, plus a growing set of community themes (each shipping both a light and dark version, no separate AMOLED mode) via the in-app Theme Store.
• Real server banners: Guild banners render as a full backdrop behind the server name instead of Discord's own tiny cropped sliver.
• Platform icon integration: Multi-resolution .ico, .png, and .svg branding assets for system tray and taskbar rendering.

Performance & Behavior

• Event-driven resource engine: Replaces background polling loops with event listeners to minimize CPU and RAM usage — verified throughout (gateway heartbeats, Gaming Mode's xprop -spy watcher, no polling timers anywhere in the codebase).
• Gaming Mode: Event-driven fullscreen detection on X11/XWayland (no portable Wayland-native equivalent exists yet), keeping mention/DM/call notifications live while backgrounded.
• Motion system: A shared set of easing/duration CSS tokens used consistently across the app (hover states, hold-to-confirm fills, the channel-list proximity effect), zeroed out under prefers-reduced-motion or the in-app override. Not a FLIP-based reflow system — nothing in the client currently needs one.

Accessibility & Utilities

• Screen reader support with semantic ARIA markup throughout.
• Keyboard-first navigation: focus trapping in modals, Escape handling, logical tab order.
• Independent text and UI scale controls.
• Native Chromium spellcheck and IME composition for non-Latin input — this comes from Electron/Chromium's own text-input handling, not custom Hyaecord code.

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Feature Parity Checklist

An honest status table, not an aspirational one — updated as features actually ship rather than written once and left stale:

Feature	Status	Notes
Sending/receiving messages, DMs	Supported	REST + gateway, live message stream
Server folders	Supported	Local to this client only — doesn't sync to Discord's real account settings
Member list	Supported	First 100 entries per channel, gateway lazy-loading protocol
Profile popout, GlobalBadges	Supported
GIF picker	Supported	Real Discord GIF search (Tenor via Discord's own proxy) when logged into Discord; falls back to a real Giphy search when it isn't (e.g. Stoat-only), via an optional local API key — see .env.example
Avatar upload	Supported
Native system tray & notifications	Supported	Mentions and DMs only, suppressed while the window is focused
Spellcheck & IME input	Native (Chromium)	Free from Electron, not custom-built
Message search	Supported	Finds a message and switches to its channel; doesn't jump to the exact message within that channel's history yet
Browsing a channel's pinned messages	Supported	📌 button by the chat header; real pins API, pin/unpin from the panel or a message's own context menu
Self-pin auto-fade	Supported	Other people's pin notices stay visible — no "hide others' pins" toggle exists yet
Joining a voice channel	Supported	Real voice gateway handshake (join/leave, who's connected, live speaking indicators) — see the note below
Voice/video audio-video transport, screen share to a call, Go Live	Not yet built	Actually sending/receiving audio or video needs Discord's real media transport (UDP or WebRTC-to-SFU with exact SDP/codec handling plus end-to-end encryption) — a project of its own, not started. See BUILD_PROMPT.md
Camera / microphone / screen-source tests	Supported	Settings → Voice & Video — real device pickers with a genuine local preview (not connected to a call yet)
Push-to-talk	Not yet built	Depends on voice support above
Emoji picker	Supported	Search-and-browse picker backed by real Unicode emoji data
Sticker picker	Supported	Real standard sticker packs; Lottie (vector-animated) stickers send correctly but preview as a name-only tile, no animation
Friends list (add/accept/decline/block/remove)	Supported	Real relationships API; the friend/pending/blocked list itself is fetched fresh on open, not kept live
Friend online status	Supported	Real gateway PRESENCE_UPDATE tracking for friends (not guild members you haven't opened) — Online tab and status dots update live even while the list is open
Built-in text commands (/shrug, /tableflip, /unflip, /me)	Supported	Discord's own real built-in commands, reimplemented locally
Plugin-registered slash commands	Supported	api.registerCommand(); merges into the same "/name" autocomplete as the built-ins above
Multi-account switching	Not yet built
Auto-updater	Not yet built
Session import (Discord/Vesktop/Equibop)	Declined for now	Requires decrypting another app's local session storage — see BUILD_PROMPT.md for why this is a deliberate hold, not an oversight
UserPFP, UsrBG	Supported	Real community avatar/banner databases, applied wherever an avatar or the profile banner renders
RPC Bridge	Supported	Real local Discord-RPC-compatible socket server; verified against a live handshake + SET_ACTIVITY exchange
Equicord Cloud Saves	Not yet built

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Installation & Setup

Package Formats

Hyaecord supports standard Linux packaging:

• Flatpak: flatpak install io.github.Hyaecord.Hyaecord (or build locally from the manifest in flatpak/)
• AppImage / .deb / .rpm: Available on the Releases page
• AUR (Arch Linux): hyaecord-bin or hyaecord-git

Windows builds are available on the Releases page as a secondary target (see Technical Specifications).

First-Run Wizard

On initial launch, Hyaecord opens a setup wizard to:

1. Detect your desktop environment and select matching default themes.
2. Log in with the real Discord login page (session import from Vesktop/Equibop/Discord is a placeholder step for now — see the Feature Parity Checklist).
3. Configure optional features and privacy toggles in plain language.

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Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or higher)
• pnpm (recommended) or npm
• C/C++ build tools (build-essential, python3, pkg-config, libsecret-1-dev)

Quickstart

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/hyaecord/hyaecord.git
cd hyaecord

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Run in development mode
pnpm dev

# Build production binaries
pnpm build

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Technical Specifications

• Core Framework: Electron, with an original client shell and GUI; plugin support is Hyaecord's own sandboxed API (src/main/plugins/), ergonomically modeled on Equicord/Vencord's definePlugin shape — not a byte-compatible runner for their actual plugin files, which rely on patching Discord's real webpack bundle that this client's original GUI doesn't have. See PLUGIN_GUIDELINES.md for exactly what that means for porting a plugin.
• Target Platforms: Linux (primary, v1), Windows (secondary).
• Networking & Split-Tunneling: Compatible with Mullvad's split tunneling — for the Flatpak build, mullvad-exclude flatpak run io.github.Hyaecord.Hyaecord (the app ID alone isn't the right syntax; mullvad-exclude wraps a command to run, and for Flatpak apps that command is flatpak run <id>).
• Localization: Externalized string bundles (src/i18n/) with RTL layout support.

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Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome on the main repository. Before submitting a plugin, please read the Plugin Guidelines. For anything involving the Hyaecord name or logo — including fork names and custom builds — check the Trademark Policy first; forks must be rebranded before public distribution.

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Credits

Thank you to the Equicord team and to Vendicated, creator of Vencord, for designing and maintaining the plugin API that Hyaecord's compatibility layer targets, and for the plugin ecosystem that makes it worth targeting.

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Star History

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Disclaimer & Legal

• Discord ToS: Hyaecord is a third-party client modification. Using client modifications is against Discord's Terms of Service. Use at your own discretion.
• Anti-abuse policy: Hyaecord does not contain tools for automation, self-bots, spamming, or scraping. Features that enable disruptive or abusive behavior are strictly out of scope.
• Branding & logo usage: Hyaecord's source code is source-available under the Hyaecord Public License (GPL-3.0-derived, non-commercial), but the logo, mascot, and project branding are protected separately. See the Trademark Policy.
• Plugin guidelines: Plugins must remain free of paywalls and subscription locks. See the Plugin Guidelines.
• Trademarks: "Discord" is a registered trademark of Discord Inc. Hyaecord is not affiliated with or endorsed by Discord Inc.

More about the Discord ToS risk

Client modifications are against Discord's Terms of Service.

In practice, Discord has historically been fairly indifferent about client mods, and there are no widely known cases of users being banned solely for using one. You should generally be fine as long as you avoid plugins that implement abusive behavior. All plugins bundled by default with Hyaecord are safe to use in this regard.

That said, if your account matters a lot to you and losing access would be a serious problem, you should probably avoid client mods altogether — not just Hyaecord, but any of them — to be safe. It's also a good idea to avoid posting screenshots of Hyaecord in servers where that could get you banned.

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License

Hyaecord's source code is source-available under the Hyaecord Public License — a GPL-3.0-derived license with two conditions on top of the GPL: no commercial use (no selling, paywalling, or charging access fees for the software, forks, or plugins; voluntary tips and donations are fine) and no closing the source (forks and derivatives must stay open and carry the same license terms).

For rules regarding logos, branding, and third-party extensions, see:

• TRADEMARK.md — Branding and trademark usage guidelines
• PLUGIN_GUIDELINES.md — Extension rules and monetization policy
• PLUGIN_PARITY.md — Audit of Equicord/Vencord's plugin catalogue against what's feasible in Hyaecord's own plugin API
• assets/branding/LICENSE.md — Brand assets are not covered by the source license; all rights reserved