Three stacked bugs prevented federation relay from working for group DMs:
1. Origin format mismatch: users.home_instance stores bare domains
("nova.ddns.net") but federation_peers.origin stores full URLs
("https://nova.ddns.net"). getGroupDmTargetOrigins() built target
lists from bare domains, so queueOutboxEvent() never matched any
peers — events were never queued into the outbox.
2. Missing federatedId in outbox reconstruction: the outbox worker
rebuilt relay events from stored payloads but never copied the
federatedId field. Receiving instances check this field and rejected
all member_add/remove/ownership_transfer events with
"missing_membership_payload".
3. Duplicate channels from cross-instance broadcasts: dm_channel_created
was sent to ALL members including remote replicas. Users connected to
multiple instances received the event twice (once per instance),
creating duplicate group DMs in their sidebar. Fixed by only
broadcasting to members whose home instance matches the current
server — remote members receive the channel via federation bootstrap
on their home instance.
- Remove redundant `leaveGroup` API method from client.ts (duplicated `leave`); update MessageList.tsx WelcomeHeader to call `api.dm.leave` directly
- Add optional `type` field to shared `Message` interface so `MessageWithUser` carries it; remove `(msg as any).type` casts in `isSameGroup` and the render branch in MessageList.tsx
- Fix `processOwnershipTransferEvent` in federation.ts: replace `channel.ownerId` fallbacks (pre-update, old owner) with `event.ownership.newOwner.homeUserId` in the db update, dm_owner_updated broadcast, and both system message content payloads
- Render system messages (member_added, member_removed, owner_changed) inline
in MessageList with icon + human-readable text; system messages never group
with adjacent user messages
- Rewrite WelcomeHeader to branch on ownerId: group DMs show overlapping avatars,
group name, creator attribution, federated privacy note, and a Leave Group button
- Add dm_owner_updated ServerEvent; broadcast from dm.ts leave handler and
federation processOwnershipTransferEvent so all clients update ownerId in real-time
- Add updateDmOwner action to spaceStore and handle dm_owner_updated in useWebSocket
- Add leaveGroup alias to API client dm namespace
On the receiving instance, federation event processors now write
dm_messages with type='system' for member_added, member_removed, and
owner_changed events and broadcast them via dm_message_created to all
connected local WebSocket clients, matching the behaviour of local
group DM operations.
When processMemberAddEvent bootstrapped a new group DM channel for the
first time on a receiving instance, local users were never notified via
WebSocket — only dm_member_added was broadcast, which requires the client
to already know about the channel. Now, after bootstrap, dm_channel_created
is sent directly to each local connected member, and the redundant
dm_member_added broadcast is skipped for the bootstrap path.
On group DM creation, emit a system message per added member (event:
member_added). On POST /api/dm/:id/members, emit a system message for
the newly added member. On DELETE /api/dm/:id/members, emit a
member_removed system message before the row is deleted (so the leaver
is still a member at broadcast time), and emit an owner_changed system
message when ownership transfers. The newOwnerUser query is moved
outside the federation-only block so it is available unconditionally.
Adds a `type` column (TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT 'user') to the dm_messages
table via schema, migration, and type definition. Updates
buildDmMessageWithUser and the inline replyTo builder in the GET
messages handler to include the field in all DM message responses.
- Fix critical: outbox worker now copies file_rejected payload fields
(attachmentId, sourceFilename, rejectionReason, rejectionLimit,
affectedUserIds) so the reverse relay actually delivers them
- Fix: add sourceFilename to file_rejected event for reliable
multi-attachment matching on the sender side
- Fix: change text-accent-warning to text-accent-amber (valid class)
- Add Array.isArray guard on federationMeta parse
Both buildDmMessageWithUser and buildMessageWithUser manually map
attachment fields — add federationStatus and federationMeta so they
reach the frontend.
Federated 1-on-1 DMs showed the raw snowflake ID as the display name
and no avatar when the remote user had no pre-existing local record.
processCreateEvent used resolveLocalUser (find-only) instead of
resolveOrCreateReplicatedUser, and relay events carried no profile data
for participants.
- Add profile snapshot (displayName, avatar, avatarColor) to
FederationRelayParticipant and populate it in getDmParticipants
- Change processCreateEvent to auto-create replicated user stubs and
hydrate them with profile data from the relay event
- Fix hydrateReplicatedUserProfile URL resolution for homeInstance
values without protocol prefix
- Fix WelcomeHeader: return null while DM data is loading (eliminates
"unknown" flash on reload), use displayName for @mention text
When converting a 1-on-1 DM to a group, the existing DM partner was
incorrectly required to be your friend. DMs don't require friendship,
so this check was over-strict. Added fromDmChannelId parameter to
createGroup — existing members of the source DM are exempt from the
friendship validation.
Bare filenames stored on replicated user stubs can't be resolved by
the home WS (normalizeUserAssets only runs for remote origins).
Now resolves avatar/banner to absolute URLs pointing to the user's
home instance so they render correctly without page refresh.
Also overwrites stale bare filenames from the prior deploy.
Replicated user stubs created by resolveOrCreateReplicatedUser had
null avatar/displayName, causing blank profiles in the UI until
page refresh. Friend relay events now carry profile snapshots
(displayName, avatar, avatarColor, banner, bio) so the receiving
instance can hydrate stubs with real data.
Rewrite the group DM creation endpoint to accept identity objects
(GroupDmUserIdentity) instead of raw user ID strings. Each identity
is resolved to a local database user via resolveOrCreateReplicatedUser
for federated users or direct ID lookup with resolveLocalUser fallback
for local users. Dedup and caller-exclusion checks now operate on
resolved local IDs rather than input IDs.
Make both identity resolution helpers module-level exports so the group DM
endpoint can import and use them when resolving federated user identities
during group DM creation.
- Hoist callerUser DB query above the federation block so it's fetched
once and reused for response building, federation ID assignment, and
relay payload construction (was fetched 3 times).
- Add homeInstance !== domainOrigin guard to finalTargets augmentation,
matching the existing pattern in POST /api/dm/:id/members.
Adds a dedicated endpoint for creating group DMs with 3-10 members.
Validates friendship, deduplication, and member caps. Includes federation
relay support for remote instance members.
- Add migrateFixOneOnOneOwnerIds migration to NULL-out ownerId on all
existing 1-on-1 DMs (those with exactly 2 members)
- Fix POST /api/dm to create 1-on-1 channels with ownerId=null instead
of the creator's ID
- Guard POST /api/dm/:id/members: reject with 400 if channel has no
owner (i.e. is a 1-on-1), directing callers to POST /api/dm/group
- Guard DELETE /api/dm/:id/members: replace member-count check with
ownerId check; remove now-duplicate dmChannel query in that handler
- Add CreateGroupDmRequest type to shared types
Replace the hard-delete in the leave handler with a soft-delete (sets
deleted_at timestamp) when the last member leaves a group DM. A new
janitor sweep in the federation worker runs hourly and purges channels
whose grace period has expired, cascading through reactions, embeds,
attachments, messages, members, outbox/mutation-log/file-queue entries,
and finally the channel itself.
All client-facing dm_channels queries now filter on deleted_at IS NULL
to hide soft-deleted channels from the REST API and WebSocket ready
payload.
In processCreateEvent, branch on event.federatedId: group DM messages now
look up the pre-bootstrapped local channel by federatedId instead of
computing a pair hash from two participants. In queueDmRelay, fetch the
channel's federatedId and ownerId and include federatedId in the outgoing
relay payload for group DMs so receiving instances can route correctly.
Add three new event processors to the relay endpoint for handling
inbound group DM membership changes from peer instances:
- processMemberAddEvent: handles member additions with channel bootstrap
(creates the local channel from group metadata on first contact)
- processMemberRemoveEvent: handles member removals with read state
cleanup and soft-delete GC when no local members remain
- processOwnershipTransferEvent: updates local channel owner tracking
All three are wired into the relay endpoint's event dispatch switch.
getGroupDmTargetOrigins() was called after the leaving user's dm_members row
was deleted, causing their instance to be excluded from member_remove and
ownership_transfer relay fan-out if they were the only member from that peer.
Move the target origins and leaving user lookups to before the deletion.
Hook POST /api/dm/:id/members and DELETE /api/dm/:id/members to the
federation outbox so membership changes propagate to peer instances:
- Assign federatedId when a group DM first gains remote members
- Relay member_add events with group metadata and participant-aware routing
- Relay member_remove (leave) events to peer instances
- Relay ownership_transfer when the departing user was the group owner,
updating the federated owner columns accordingly
Uses messageHomeInstance to determine whether the target message
originated locally (lookup by ID) or was replicated from another
instance (lookup by sourceInstance + sourceMessageId). Supports
N-instance federation and falls back to relay-sender lookup for
backward compatibility with in-flight outbox entries.
When Instance 2 receives a relay from Instance 1, it no longer
broadcasts dm_message_created to members whose home instance is Instance
1. Those users already have the original message via their home WS
connection. This prevents duplicate messages from appearing in the
sender's chat.
Reaction outbox events used reactionId (add) or a composite dedup key
(remove) as the event messageId. The receiver looked up dm_messages by
sourceMessageId = event.messageId, which never matched because it was
searching for a reactionId, not the actual message ID.
Fix: include the actual DM messageId in the reaction payload JSON.
The receiver now uses event.reaction.messageId for the lookup, with
fallback to event.messageId for backward compatibility.
The source instance's thumbnail file doesn't exist locally, so copying
its thumbnailFilename causes a 404 in the chat view. Set to null so
AttachmentRenderer falls back to the full image URL.
Insert attachment rows with sourceUrl as interim filename so the initial
WebSocket broadcast includes working remote URLs. AttachmentRenderer
already handles http:// filenames as direct URLs. The file worker will
UPDATE the filename to the local path after download completes.
This fixes the invisible bubble bug where attachment-only messages
(content: null, attachments: []) appeared as empty messages.
The relay was failing because processCreateEvent relied on the friends
table to discover the DM recipient, but friendships aren't federated
across instances. Also, resolveLocalUser matched deleted replicated
users before active ones.
- Add participants[] to FederationRelayEvent with homeUserId/homeInstance
for all DM channel members
- Add getDmParticipants() helper to look up member identities
- Include participants in outbox payloads (create/update) and sync events
- Rewrite processCreateEvent to resolve participants directly, compute
canonicalDmPairId, and findOrCreateDmChannel — removing the entire
friends-list fallback (60+ lines)
- Fix resolveLocalUser to filter out deleted users (is_deleted = 0)
and prefer the replicated user match when multiple candidates exist
The old query missed channels where both members appear as 'local'
(e.g., native Nova + native youruser on orbit). Using
canonical_pair_id is simpler and correct — any channel with a pair
ID is a federated DM that should be synced.
Messages by replicated users (e.g., Jannis browsing orbit) have
source_instance IS NULL because they were created on that instance.
The sync endpoint was incorrectly filtering these out, causing most
DM history to be missing from the sync response.
Task 13: Hook server-to-server peering into connectToRemote (non-fatal)
and add federation API namespace to the client (initiate, peers, revoke).
Task 14: Show a transparency notice in the DM welcome header when the
other user is on a remote instance, informing that messages are stored
on both home instances and are not end-to-end encrypted.
Task 15: Add Federation section to the instance settings General panel
with DM relay toggle, TTL config, and a live peer list with revoke
buttons. Also extends InstanceAdminSettings type and the server settings
route to support federationRelayEnabled / federationRelayTtlDays.
Add POST /api/federation/sync for peer instances to catch up on missed
DM mutations after downtime. Uses HMAC-SHA256 authentication (same as
relay), determines shared channels between peers via raw SQL join on
dm_members/users, queries the federation_mutation_log with timestamp
pagination, and returns FederationRelayEvent payloads for each mutation
type (create, update, delete, reaction_add, reaction_remove).
Add federation routes module with four endpoints:
- POST /api/federation/peer/initiate — admin-only, starts peering handshake
with a remote instance (validates origin, generates HMAC secret, sends
server-to-server accept request with 10s timeout)
- POST /api/federation/peer/accept — server-to-server first contact,
rate-limited to 10 req/min per IP, creates/activates peer record
- GET /api/federation/peers — admin-only, lists all peers (hmacSecret excluded)
- DELETE /api/federation/peers/:id — admin-only, revokes peer and cleans outbox
Jannis Braun