- 202 response: parse approvalToken from body and store on the local
federation_peers row alongside status='awaiting_approval'. Legacy
receivers that omit the field result in null stored token, handled
gracefully by the verification logic landing in subsequent commits.
- 200 response: clear approvalToken in the same UPDATE that sets
status='active' (single-use consumption per spec §3.2).
Test coverage: 4 tests in federationPeering.approvalToken.test.ts covering
JSON token, missing token (legacy), non-JSON body, and 200 clear after
prior token storage.
Closes the auto-reconnect trust-bypass: any code path calling
ensurePeered(remote) on an instance with autoAcceptPeering=0 could
previously bypass the admin gate by initiating a fresh handshake to the
remote, which the remote then accepted against its existing
awaiting_approval row.
The trigger surfaced was stores/instanceStore.ts:1010 — the silent
.catch(() => {}) auto-reconnect that fires for any user with the
remote in their replicatedInstances (commonly: any admin). Anyone with
that profile reloading their session activated peering on both sides
without any admin approval action.
Surgical fix: ensurePeered now returns rejected when an unresolved
inbound peer_approval_requests row exists for the target origin. The
legitimate admin-approve flow (routes/federation.ts:1089) does not call
ensurePeered; it deletes the approval-request and does its own direct
fetch to /peer/accept, so this check does not block legitimate approvals.
The receiver-side trust assumption at routes/federation.ts:619-645
(awaiting_approval branch in /peer/accept) still has the same flaw
— an adversarial peer that knows the timing could re-handshake at the
right moment to flip the receiver to active. That deeper trust-model
rework is plan-grade work tracked at internal notes
2026-04-26-peer-handshake-trust-model.md.
Initiator side of the bidirectional handshake exchange. /peer/accept now returns instanceName in the response body (prior commit); performHandshake parses it and persists alongside status='active'. Tolerates missing field (older peers) and non-JSON bodies.
Discovered during live verification of #10b Scenario 3: the switch
in ensurePeered had no case for needs_attention, so it fell through
to performHandshake. Because the /peer/accept idempotent-200-no-update
safeguard covers needs_attention on the inbound side, the remote
returned 200 without writing the new secret, and performHandshake
transitioned the local peer to 'active' on the 200 response — auto-
healing a state that requires admin intervention.
Affected paths: sendCallRelay non-blocking warm-up (used by typing
relay); any future caller of ensurePeered on a needs_attention peer.
Not affected: resolvePendingPeers (already filters on status='pending').
Fix: explicit case 'needs_attention' returning { status: 'rejected',
error }. Caller observes the rejection and does not advance state.
Every code location that sets federation_peers.status='active'
now invokes onPeerActivated(peerId, reason). HTTP handler sites
use fire-and-forget (.catch(log)) so the response isn't blocked
by sync-pull pagination. The worker-internal health-check site
awaits the handler since the tick is already async.
Sites: /peer/initiate, /peer/accept (4 branches), /approval-
requests/:id/approve, health check recovery, ensurePeered/
performHandshake.
Addresses code review on b22a7bd: (1) a rejected handshake now returns
{ status: 'failed', error } instead of throwing, keeping the structured
contract; (2) the "background handshake" warn only fires when the
timeout arm wins — not when the handshake is itself the race winner by
rejection. Timing tests migrated to vi.useFakeTimers for determinism.
Regression test added for the handshake-wins-by-rejection case.
Exports `racePeering(origin, timeoutMs, ensurePeeredFn?)` that races
`ensurePeered` against a deadline. On timeout, the background handshake
continues (warming the peer for the next attempt) and a warn-logged
.catch() prevents unhandledRejection. Injectable `ensurePeeredFn` param
enables full DI in tests without mocking module internals.
Added federation_peers_changed (no-payload signal) broadcast from every
peer state mutation, and federation_approval_request_received when a new
approval request is queued. Client subscribes via onFederationPeersChanged
callback registry. FederationPanel and PendingApprovals debounce-refetch
on any event. sendToAdmins helper broadcasts only to admin users.
autoAcceptPeering means 'don't accept peering initiated by others', not
'don't initiate peering ourselves'. Two checks were incorrectly blocking
outgoing peering when auto-accept was off:
1. ensurePeered() refused to auto-initiate — reverted. When a local user
sends a DM, the server should initiate peering. The remote's
peer/accept decides whether to accept or queue.
2. queueOutboxEvent() refused to create placeholders — reverted. The
outbox needs placeholders to queue entries. Without them, DM relay
silently fails.
ensurePeered() now checks the local autoAcceptPeering setting before
initiating new peering. When disabled, only admin-explicit peer/initiate
and approval-request approve bypass this check. Closes the bypass where
client peer/ensure or outbox worker could auto-initiate outward peering
even when the admin intended to control all peering.
Jannis Braun