The MeshCore Split: What It Means for Operators

The MeshCore core development team published a statement today laying out why they’ve separated from team member Andy Kirby. The full piece is at blog.meshcore.io/2026/04/23/the-split. Andy has since posted his own video response, which we cover separately. This post is a short operator-side summary of what each side has said and where the practical picture stands for anyone running MeshCore nodes.

We’re reporting this from the outside. Everything here traces to the core team’s public statement, Andy’s direct response to us, and the current state of the public repos. We’re not rendering judgment on the pieces we can’t see.

What the Core Team Said

The short version: Scott (firmware, founder), Liam Cottle (app), Recrof (map and flasher), FDLamotte (Python tooling and STM32 support), and Oltaco (bootloader) are the ongoing core team. Andy Kirby is not.

Three specific points are cited in the team’s statement:

A trademark filing. The team says Andy applied for the MeshCore trademark on March 29 without notifying the rest of the project. Communication has since broken down.

Undisclosed AI-generated code. The statement says Andy began using Claude Code extensively across the ecosystem without making the AI-generated nature of that code clear. The team ran a Discord poll and reports that a majority of respondents opposed undisclosed AI-generated firmware.

A domain and branding dispute. Andy runs meshcore.co.uk. The core team has launched meshcore.io as a project home, with a blog, documentation, and map portal there.

Andy continues to label his MeshOS line as “official MeshCore.” The core team’s position is that the canonical MeshCore is the meshcore-dev/MeshCore GitHub repository.

That’s the account as they laid it out.

The Practical Picture for Operators

If you run MeshCore nodes today, here’s where things live:

Firmware from the core team ships at github.com/meshcore-dev/MeshCore. The v1.15.0 release on April 19 is the latest.

The MeshCore app (Android and iOS) is Liam Cottle’s work. Third-party clients like MeshCore Open App remain independent of this dispute.

The core team Discord is meshcore.gg. Their map portal, docs, blog, and flasher are at meshcore.io.

MeshOS is Andy’s downstream project. It runs on hardware like the T-Deck and has its own website and release cadence at meshcore.co.uk.

Running a MeshCore repeater today works the same as it did yesterday. The dispute is over branding, trademarks, and what gets called “official” — not over the firmware already on your hardware.

What We’re Watching

The trademark process. A trademark application isn’t a trademark grant. How the filing resolves will shape the naming question over time.

Firmware continuity. The core team has been shipping consistently since launch. As long as meshcore-dev/MeshCore keeps receiving commits and cutting releases, operators can make their own calls about which codebase to flash.

How MeshOS evolves. Andy’s MeshOS has its own trajectory. Whether it continues to overlap with or diverge from core MeshCore is something to watch.

Open-source forks and team splits happen. For operators, the thing that matters most is knowing where your firmware came from and who is maintaining the codebase you’ve flashed.

We’ll keep watching how this develops. If you have questions, come talk about it on our Discord.