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id: investigate: IRC-first chat on ID — channels, graph-linked objects, presence #2049
Description
LIST 14a. Drew: 'I mostly just want IRC' — with room to grow toward Discord/Slack/Teams. Investigate chat on ID: channels/topics, identity = Iroh ID (no registration), messages that LINK to games, pictures, and other objects stored in people's graphs, and presence/roster semantics over P2P links. Deliverable: minimal chat protocol sketch (what an IRC-shaped client needs from ID).
Program: Drew's 2026-10-28 directive (full text: hatch-personal memory/topics/id-program-2026-10-28.md).
Working pattern: parallel investigations, then the named synthesis issue merges them into a full design. Route guidance: Workhorse by default; Specialist/Summit for synthesis and ramification-heavy work. A result that says "done" is not the endpoint — the orchestrator reviews it and may commission another round. Deliverables: a markdown design/investigation doc (mermaid/SVG diagrams welcome) linked from this issue, plus follow-up issues for anything buildable. Build a proof of concept where the design calls for one, but do NOT build the permanent feature on top of an unreviewed PoC.
Acceptance criteria
- A markdown investigation doc is linked from this issue with a minimal chat protocol sketch: channels/topics, identity = Iroh ID with no registration, and presence/roster semantics over P2P links.
- The sketch states what an IRC-shaped client needs from ID, including messages that link to graph-stored objects (games, pictures, other objects).
- Follow-up issues are filed for anything buildable the investigation identifies.
Activity
developing-today commentedon Oct 29, 2026
CODE-970
dezren39 commentedon Oct 29, 2026
Parent epic: #2056 — ID platform expansion (2026-10-28 directive).
dezren39 commentedon Oct 29, 2026
Intake review
Fleet monitor intake (2026-10-29) — verified still live: no merged PR or commit implements this yet; the filing audit/decision record it cites is current.
Notes: ID-program investigation (LIST 14a) under Drew's 2026-10-28 directive — Drew: 'I mostly just want IRC', with room to grow toward Discord/Slack/Teams. Part of the batch filed 2026-10-29 ~01:00Z. Deliverable is the protocol sketch, not an implementation.
Suggested approach: Design IRC-first: minimal surface an IRC-shaped client needs, with graph-linked objects as the one ID-native extension.
Risks: Designing for the Discord-shaped future instead of the IRC-shaped present would bloat the minimal protocol — keep growth room as notes, not requirements.
Labels normalized by the monitor; acceptance criteria appended to the body (original text preserved verbatim above it).
dezren39 commentedon Oct 30, 2026
Queued: repo-health-code-pilot task 3923 (2026-10-30). This issue was never picked up after filing — the task covers verification against the current codebase and writing the investigation in the same pass (design doc PR under doc/, follow-up issues for buildable pieces, close with the doc link). Wave-2 queueing of the unrun ID-program investigations, ordered by Drew.
dezren39 commentedon Oct 30, 2026
🤖 Agent note · picked up (verification + investigation write in this pass)
dezren39 commentedon Oct 30, 2026
🤖 Agent note · done (investigation delivered; PR open)
Investigation result — IRC-first chat (#2049)
Verdict: ID owns ~2/3 of an IRC core wearing a game-world costume; the missing third is bounded and needs no new trust machinery. World chat (
WorldEventKind::Chat,world/mod.rs:330) gives addressed rooms, 2048-byte sanitized messages, capability-scoped send/receive, and catch-up;/id-envelope/1gives signed 1:1 delivery where the signature — not the node — is the trust; identity is already registration-free (endpoint ticket or bare node ID, private petnames). Missing: channels outside worlds, a message link format for graph objects, and any presence protocol. Full sketch in the doc.<scope>/<name>over the existinggroups/roster/policy machinery (friendship is already a two-member group); no global namespace — names resolve in the client's local view like petnames do.channel/author/seq/after/text/links/sig, domain tagid-chat/v1/message), same 2048-byte + 50/10s bounds as world chat. Settles into signed events per channel; presence never settles.{kind, hash, author}+ optional ticket hint; resolve local → author → id: investigate: BitTorrent-style chunk retrieval for graph objects #2050 swarm. Onlyblobandeventkinds in v1; games are rendered events, not new link kinds.in_reply_toon flat delivery; reactions = ephemeral annotations; servers = group templates + directory event; bouncer = hosted bridge as an ordinary member. All degrade to IRC text.Open questions for #2051
Q1 settle-everything vs settle-on-save · Q2 gossip topic-per-channel vs tagged single topic · Q3 hint-rot fallback depth (for #2050) · Q4 DM group-record vs pure envelopes · Q5 hosted-edition presence fan-out. Details in doc §4.
Doc:
doc/2026-10-30T19-40-00Z_investigation_irc_first_chat_on_id/in PR #2807.Merge pull request #2807 from developing-today/queue/3923-2049-irc-chat
dezren39 commentedon Oct 30, 2026
Closed: investigation delivered in PR #2807 (merged as ad18a0b) — doc at doc/2026-10-30T19-40-00Z_investigation_irc_first_chat_on_id/. Follow-ups #2808 (channel-frames PoC) and #2809 (presence protocol) filed; open questions handed to the #2051 synthesis.