diff --git a/src/bin/poc-daemon/modules/irc.rs b/src/bin/poc-daemon/modules/irc.rs
index a93030c..7d7b727 100644
--- a/src/bin/poc-daemon/modules/irc.rs
+++ b/src/bin/poc-daemon/modules/irc.rs
@@ -23,6 +23,8 @@ use tracing::{error, info, warn};
 const MAX_LOG_LINES: usize = 200;
 const RECONNECT_BASE_SECS: u64 = 5;
 const RECONNECT_MAX_SECS: u64 = 300;
+const PING_INTERVAL_SECS: u64 = 120;
+const PING_TIMEOUT_SECS: u64 = 30;
 
 /// Parsed IRC message.
 struct IrcMessage {
@@ -208,8 +210,14 @@ async fn connection_loop(
             }
         }
 
+        // Reset backoff if we had a working connection (registered
+        // successfully before disconnecting)
+        let was_connected = state.borrow().connected;
         state.borrow_mut().connected = false;
         state.borrow_mut().writer = None;
+        if was_connected {
+            backoff = RECONNECT_BASE_SECS;
+        }
 
         // Persist current channel list to config
         {
@@ -274,11 +282,39 @@ async fn register_and_read<R: tokio::io::AsyncRead + Unpin>(
     }
 
     let mut buf = Vec::new();
+    let mut ping_sent = false;
+    let mut deadline = tokio::time::Instant::now()
+        + std::time::Duration::from_secs(PING_INTERVAL_SECS);
 
     loop {
         buf.clear();
-        let n = reader.read_until(b'\n', &mut buf).await?;
+
+        let read_result = tokio::select! {
+            result = reader.read_until(b'\n', &mut buf) => result,
+            _ = tokio::time::sleep_until(deadline) => {
+                if ping_sent {
+                    return Err(io::Error::new(
+                        io::ErrorKind::TimedOut,
+                        "ping timeout — no response from server",
+                    ));
+                }
+                info!("irc: no data for {}s, sending PING", PING_INTERVAL_SECS);
+                state.borrow_mut().send_raw("PING :keepalive").await?;
+                ping_sent = true;
+                deadline = tokio::time::Instant::now()
+                    + std::time::Duration::from_secs(PING_TIMEOUT_SECS);
+                continue;
+            }
+        };
+
+        let n = read_result?;
         if n == 0 { break; }
+
+        // Any data from server resets the ping timer
+        ping_sent = false;
+        deadline = tokio::time::Instant::now()
+            + std::time::Duration::from_secs(PING_INTERVAL_SECS);
+
         // IRC is not guaranteed UTF-8 — lossy conversion handles Latin-1 etc.
         let line = String::from_utf8_lossy(&buf).trim_end().to_string();
         if line.is_empty() { continue; }
@@ -471,6 +507,15 @@ pub async fn handle_command(
                 return Err("usage: irc send <target> <message>".into());
             }
             let target = &args[0];
+            if target.starts_with('#') {
+                let s = state.borrow();
+                if !s.channels.iter().any(|c| c == target) {
+                    return Err(format!(
+                        "not in channel {target} (joined: {})",
+                        s.channels.join(", ")
+                    ));
+                }
+            }
             let msg = args[1..].join(" ");
             let nick = state.borrow().config.nick.clone();
             state