Skip to main content
Hayate gives you two ways to send files: Pairing Mode, where peers find each other automatically on your LAN using a shared code phrase, and Direct Mode, where you dial a receiver by its IP address and port. Both modes encrypt every byte in transit using X25519 key agreement and hardware-accelerated AEAD — no configuration required.

​
Basic File Transfer

In Pairing Mode, share a code phrase with the person running hayate receive and Hayate handles the rest. In Direct Mode, supply the receiver’s ip:port as a positional argument.

​
Auto-Generating a Code

If you omit --code and don’t specify a target address, Hayate generates a random 4-word phrase and prints it to your terminal. Share that phrase with the receiver — both sides derive the session key from it.
The sender waits, listening via mDNS and UDP broadcast, until a receiver claiming the same code connects.

​
Choosing an Integrity Algorithm

Use the --hash flag to select the algorithm Hayate uses to verify the transfer end-to-end.
  • blake3 (default) — fastest option; cryptographically secure and parallelised
  • sha256 — widely recognised standard; useful when you need the checksum to be verifiable by external tools
The chosen algorithm is announced during the handshake; the receiver uses the same algorithm automatically. The checksum is printed in the transfer summary on both sides when the transfer completes.

​
Compression Control

Zstd compression is enabled by default (-z / --compress). Hayate applies it at level 1 — fast enough that it rarely becomes the bottleneck on a LAN. Turn it off when your files are already compressed (ZIP, MP4, JPEG, and similar formats) to avoid wasting CPU cycles.
Hayate’s Zstd compression applies to the raw byte stream, so passing --compress=false for already-compressed archives avoids double-compression overhead without any loss of transfer reliability.

​
Progress Bar

A live progress bar is shown by default while a transfer is running. Use --no-progress to suppress it — helpful when piping output, running in a headless environment, or using a terminal emulator that doesn’t handle Unicode block characters cleanly.

​
Sending to a Custom Port

Specify any port in the target address. The receiver must be listening on that same port.

​
Sending to a Specific Address

You can combine a custom IP and port freely. Hayate resolves hostnames too, so laptop.local:50001 works wherever your system can resolve .local names.
hayate send can also be invoked as hayate tx — a shorter alias that’s handy when you’re typing quickly.
Run hayate discover before sending if you don’t know the receiver’s IP address. It scans every detected subnet and streams results live, showing each active Hayate receiver’s address and operating system.

Receive Files

Set up a receiver on the destination device to accept incoming transfers.