lwakefield / hatchat

hatch@

Hatch@ (hatchat) is a message broker system designed for simplicity.

Hatch@ is built on top of Postgres, so that you can integrate with your existing databases, or treat as an external system.

Although Hatch@ does not provide end-to-end encryption out of the box, it is designed with privacy and security in mind (albeit by an amateur). Part of this design uses a somewhat unusual authentication system, where the clients register an account with Hatch@, then self-sign all subsequent requests.

Hatch@ uses long-polling to provide real-time updates. It may not be the most efficient method, but it is dead simple.

API

Hatch@ exposes the following endpoints. All HTTP endpoints expect Content-Type: application/json. Authentication uses JWT in the format: b64({ header }).b64({ id: "user-id" }).signature where the signature is created by signing the prior parts, with the users private key.

POST /users registers a new user.

• id uuid string.
• publicKey RSA public key string in PEM format
• username regular ol' string

PATCH /users/:id allows the owner of a user to update some attributes.

• username regular ol' string

DELETE /users/:id allows the owner of a user to delete that account.

GET /users/:id allows any user to view the { id, publicKey, username } of another user.

POST /channels creates a new channel

• id any string, must be unique across other channels
• inviteModel must be a string with value "owner" (only the owner/creator of the channel may invite members), "member" (only members of the channel may invite other members), "self" (anyone can join / you invite yourself)

PATCH /channels/:id allows the owner of a channel to update the channel.

• inviteModel must be a string with value "owner", "member" or "self"

DELETE /channels/:id allows the owner of a channel to delete the channel.

GET /channels/:id allows the members of the channel to to list details of that channel (including other members).

GET /channels shows a user which channels they are a member of.

POST /invite invites a user to a channel, the invite must match the inviteModel.

• channelId id of channel
• userId uuid string

POST /messages send a message to a channel

• channelId id of channel
• payload json

GET /messages get messages from a channel. This endpoint is intended for long-polling, as a result, if no messages match the window specified, it will hang for up to 30s before returning either, some messages or an empty array. Messages are returned in ascending order of their createdAt.

• channelId id of channel
• since ISO timestamp or -infinity to indicate "beginning of time"
• until ISO timestamp or infinity to indicate "end of time"
• limit number of rows to return at a time