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   1 # Chats
   2
   3 Chats are a way to represent an IM-style conversation between two actors. They are not the same as direct messages and they are not `Status`es, even though they have a lot in common.
   4
   5 ## Why Chats?
   6
   7 There are no 'visibility levels' in ActivityPub, their definition is purely a Mastodon convention. Direct Messaging between users on the fediverse has mostly been modeled by using ActivityPub addressing following Mastodon conventions on normal `Note` objects. In this case, a 'direct message' would be a message that has no followers addressed and also does not address the special public actor, but just the recipients in the `to` field. It would still be a `Note` and is presented with other `Note`s as a `Status` in the API.
   8
   9 This is an awkward setup for a few reasons:
  10
  11 - As DMs generally still follow the usual `Status` conventions, it is easy to accidentally pull somebody into a DM thread by mentioning them. (e.g. "I hate @badguy so much")
  12 - It is possible to go from a publicly addressed `Status` to a DM reply, back to public, then to a 'followers only' reply, and so on. This can be become very confusing, as it is unclear which user can see which part of the conversation.
  13 - The standard `Status` format of implicit addressing also leads to rather ugly results if you try to display the messages as a chat, because all the recipients are always mentioned by name in the message.
  14 - As direct messages are posted with the same api call (and usually same frontend component) as public messages, accidentally making a public message private or vice versa can happen easily. Client bugs can also lead to this, accidentally making private messages public.
  15
  16 As a measure to improve this situation, the `Conversation` concept and related Pleroma extensions were introduced. While it made it possible to work around a few of the issues, many of the problems remained and it didn't see much adoption because it was too complicated to use correctly.
  17
  18 ## Chats explained
  19 For this reasons, Chats are a new and different entity, both in the API as well as in ActivityPub. A quick overview:
  20
  21 - Chats are meant to represent an instant message conversation between two actors. For now these are only 1-on-1 conversations, but the other actor can be a group in the future.
  22 - Chat messages have the ActivityPub type `ChatMessage`. They are not `Note`s. Servers that don't understand them will just drop them.
  23 - The only addressing allowed in `ChatMessage`s is one single ActivityPub actor in the `to` field.
  24 - There's always only one Chat between two actors. If you start chatting with someone and later start a 'new' Chat, the old Chat will be continued.
  25 - `ChatMessage`s are posted with a different api, making it very hard to accidentally send a message to the wrong person.
  26 - `ChatMessage`s don't show up in the existing timelines.
  27 - Chats can never go from private to public. They are always private between the two actors.
  28
  29 ## Caveats
  30
  31 - Chats are NOT E2E encrypted (yet). Security is still the same as email.
  32
  33 ## API
  34
  35 In general, the way to send a `ChatMessage` is to first create a `Chat`, then post a message to that `Chat`. `Group`s will later be supported by making them a sub-type of `Account`.
  36
  37 This is the overview of using the API. The API is also documented via OpenAPI, so you can view it and play with it by pointing SwaggerUI or a similar OpenAPI tool to `https://yourinstance.tld/api/openapi`.
  38
  39 ### Creating or getting a chat.
  40
  41 To create or get an existing Chat for a certain recipient (identified by Account ID)
  42 you can call:
  43
  44 `POST /api/v1/pleroma/chats/by-account-id/{account_id}`
  45
  46 The account id is the normal FlakeId of the user
  47 ```
  48 POST /api/v1/pleroma/chats/by-account-id/someflakeid
  49 ```
  50
  51 If you already have the id of a chat, you can also use
  52
  53 ```
  54 GET /api/v1/pleroma/chats/:id
  55 ```
  56
  57 There will only ever be ONE Chat for you and a given recipient, so this call
  58 will return the same Chat if you already have one with that user.
  59
  60 Returned data:
  61
  62 ```json
  63 {
  64   "account": {
  65     "id": "someflakeid",
  66     "username": "somenick",
  67     ...
  68   },
  69   "id" : "1",
  70   "unread" : 2,
  71   "last_message" : {...}, // The last message in that chat
  72   "updated_at": "2020-04-21T15:11:46.000Z"
  73 }
  74 ```
  75
  76 ### Marking a chat as read
  77
  78 To set the `unread` count of a chat to 0, call
  79
  80 `POST /api/v1/pleroma/chats/:id/read`
  81
  82 Returned data:
  83
  84 ```json
  85 {
  86   "account": {
  87     "id": "someflakeid",
  88     "username": "somenick",
  89     ...
  90   },
  91   "id" : "1",
  92   "unread" : 0,
  93   "updated_at": "2020-04-21T15:11:46.000Z"
  94 }
  95 ```
  96
  97
  98 ### Getting a list of Chats
  99
 100 `GET /api/v1/pleroma/chats`
 101
 102 This will return a list of chats that you have been involved in, sorted by their
 103 last update (so new chats will be at the top).
 104
 105 Returned data:
 106
 107 ```json
 108 [
 109    {
 110       "account": {
 111         "id": "someflakeid",
 112         "username": "somenick",
 113         ...
 114       },
 115       "id" : "1",
 116       "unread" : 2,
 117       "last_message" : {...}, // The last message in that chat
 118       "updated_at": "2020-04-21T15:11:46.000Z"
 119    }
 120 ]
 121 ```
 122
 123 The recipient of messages that are sent to this chat is given by their AP ID.
 124 The usual pagination options are implemented.
 125
 126 ### Getting the messages for a Chat
 127
 128 For a given Chat id, you can get the associated messages with
 129
 130 `GET /api/v1/pleroma/chats/{id}/messages`
 131
 132 This will return all messages, sorted by most recent to least recent. The usual
 133 pagination options are implemented.
 134
 135 Returned data:
 136
 137 ```json
 138 [
 139   {
 140     "account_id": "someflakeid",
 141     "chat_id": "1",
 142     "content": "Check this out :firefox:",
 143     "created_at": "2020-04-21T15:11:46.000Z",
 144     "emojis": [
 145       {
 146         "shortcode": "firefox",
 147         "static_url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
 148         "url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
 149         "visible_in_picker": false
 150       }
 151     ],
 152     "id": "13"
 153   },
 154   {
 155     "account_id": "someflakeid",
 156     "chat_id": "1",
 157     "content": "Whats' up?",
 158     "created_at": "2020-04-21T15:06:45.000Z",
 159     "emojis": [],
 160     "id": "12"
 161   }
 162 ]
 163 ```
 164
 165 ### Posting a chat message
 166
 167 Posting a chat message for given Chat id works like this:
 168
 169 `POST /api/v1/pleroma/chats/{id}/messages`
 170
 171 Parameters:
 172 - content: The text content of the message. Optional if media is attached.
 173 - media_id: The id of an upload that will be attached to the message.
 174
 175 Currently, no formatting beyond basic escaping and emoji is implemented.
 176
 177 Returned data:
 178
 179 ```json
 180 {
 181   "account_id": "someflakeid",
 182   "chat_id": "1",
 183   "content": "Check this out :firefox:",
 184   "created_at": "2020-04-21T15:11:46.000Z",
 185   "emojis": [
 186     {
 187       "shortcode": "firefox",
 188       "static_url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
 189       "url": "https://dontbulling.me/emoji/Firefox.gif",
 190       "visible_in_picker": false
 191     }
 192   ],
 193   "id": "13"
 194 }
 195 ```
 196
 197 ### Deleting a chat message
 198
 199 Deleting a chat message for given Chat id works like this:
 200
 201 `DELETE /api/v1/pleroma/chats/{chat_id}/messages/{message_id}`
 202
 203 Returned data is the deleted message.
 204
 205 ### Notifications
 206
 207 There's a new `pleroma:chat_mention` notification, which has this form:
 208
 209 ```json
 210 {
 211   "id": "someid",
 212   "type": "pleroma:chat_mention",
 213   "account": { ... } // User account of the sender,
 214   "chat_message": {
 215     "chat_id": "1",
 216     "id": "10",
 217     "content": "Hello",
 218     "account_id": "someflakeid"
 219   },
 220   "created_at": "somedate"
 221 }
 222 ```