ssb-meta-feeds

An implementation of the ssb metafeed spec in JS as a secret stack plugin. The core idea is being able to split out content you publish into subfeeds. This allows for quicker replication by peers, such that you only get the subfeeds, thus content types, you are interested in.

Metafeeds are special types of feeds which own or "contain" other feeds (called "subfeeds"), by publishing messages which describe the creation of the subfeeds.

graph TB

main

classDef default fill:#3f506c,stroke:#3f506c,color:#fff;

How "classic" scuttlebutt worked - each device has one main feed with all messages

graph TB

root:::root

root-->aboutMe
root-->contacts
root-->posts
root-->main:::legacy

classDef root fill:#8338ec,stroke:#8338ec,color:#fff;
classDef default fill:#3a86ff,stroke:#3a86ff,color:#fff;
classDef legacy fill:#3f506c,stroke:#3f506c,color:#fff;

How scuttlebutt works with metafeeds - each device now has a root metafeed, whose sole responsibility is to announce (point to) subfeeds that you publish content to. A subfeed can also be a metafeed, which then allows the existence of "sub-subfeeds".

This means that when you first meet a peer you can replicate their root metafeed and, having discovered their subfeeds, replicate just their aboutMe and contacts feeds to get enough info to place them socially. Once you decide you want to follow them you may replicate their other subfeeds.

NOTE: The ideal state is that all content is split out into subfeeds. To add backwards compatability for devices that have already posted a lot of posts to their classic main feed, this library will auto-link that main feed in as a "subfeed" of our root.

Installation

Prerequisites:

• Requires Node.js 10 or higher
• Requires ssb-db2 version 5.0 or higher
• Requires ssb-bendy-butt version 1.0 or higher

npm install --save ssb-meta-feeds

Add this plugin like this:

 const sbot = SecretStack({ appKey: caps.shs })
     .use(require('ssb-db2'))
+    .use(require('ssb-bendy-butt'))
+    .use(require('ssb-meta-feeds'))
     // ...

Example usage

We create a subfeed for about messages under our root feed using findOrCreate. This will only create the subfeed if there is no existing subfeed that matches the criteria.

const details = { purpose: 'aboutMe' }
sbot.metafeeds.findOrCreate(details, (err, aboutMeFeed) => {
  console.log(aboutMeFeed)

  //
})

The details argument is an object used to find (or create) a subfeed under your "root feed". (It actually nests it under a couple of subfeeds, to handle versioning, and sparse replication, but you generally don't need to know the details).

Once you have a FeedDetails object, like aboutMeFeed, you can publish on the new subfeed:

const details = { purpose: 'aboutMe' }
sbot.metafeeds.findOrCreate(details, (err, aboutMeFeed) => {
  console.log(aboutMeFeed)

  const content = {
    type: 'about',
    name: 'baba yaga'
    description: 'lives in a hutt in the forest, swing by sometime!'
  }
  sbot.db.create({ keys: aboutMeFeed.keys, content }, (err, msg) => {
    console.log(msg)
  })
})

API

sbot.metafeeds.findOrCreate(details, cb)

Looks for the first subfeed of metafeed that matches details, or creates one which matches these. This creates feeds following the v1 tree structure.

Arguments:

• details Object where

  • details.purpose String any string to characterize the purpose of this new subfeed
  • details.feedFormat String (optional)
    • either 'classic' or 'bendybutt-v1'
    • default: 'classic'
  • details.recps Array (optional)
    • A collection of "recipients" (GroupId, FeedId, ...) to encrypt the announcement messages to
  • details.encryptionFormat String (optional)
    • specifies which encryption format to use (you will need an encryption plugin installed e.g. ssb-box2 installed)
    • default: 'box2'
  • details.metadata Object (optional) - for containing other data

• cb function delivers the response, has signature (err, FeedDetails), where FeedDetails is

  {
    id: '@I5TBH6BuCvMkSAWJXKwa2FEd8y/fUafkQ1z19PyXzbE=.ed25519',
    parent: 'ssb:feed/bendybutt-v1/sxK3OnHxdo7yGZ-28HrgpVq8nRBFaOCEGjRE4nB7CO8=',
    purpose: 'chess',
    feedFormat: 'classic',
    seed: <Buffer 13 10 25 ab e3 37 20 57 19 0a 1d e4 64 13 e7 38 d2 23 11 48 7d 13 e6 3b 8f ef 72 92 7f db 96 64>
    keys: {
      curve: 'ed25519',
      public: 'I5TBH6BuCvMkSAWJXKwa2FEd8y/fUafkQ1z19PyXzbE=.ed25519',
      private: 'Mxa+LL16ws7HZhetR9FbsIOsAeud+ii+9KDUisXkq08jlMEfoG4K8yRIBYlcrBrYUR3zL99Rp+RDXPX0/JfNsQ==.ed25519',
      id: '@I5TBH6BuCvMkSAWJXKwa2FEd8y/fUafkQ1z19PyXzbE=.ed25519'
    },
    recps: ['%I5TBH6BuCvMkSAWJXKwa2FEd8y/fUafkQ1z19PyXzbE=.cloaked'], // a GroupId
    metadata: {
      notes: 'private testing of chess dev',
    },
  }

Meaning:

• keys - cryptographic keys used for signing messages published by this feed (see ssb-keys)
• id - the id of this feed, same as keys.id
• parent - the id of the parent metafeed under which this feed was announced
• purpose - a human readable ideally unique handle for this feed
• feedFormat - the feed format ("classic", "bendybutt-v1", "indexed-v1", etc)
• seed - the data from which is use to derive the keys and id of this feed.
• recps - an Array of recipients who the metafeed announcement was encrypted to
• metadata - object containing additional data

NOTES:

• if you have a legacy main feed, this will also set that up as a subfeed of your root feed.

sbot.metafeeds.findOrCreate(cb)

Fetches the root metafeed details of your own meta feed tree. There can only be one root metafeed in a tree, so even if you call findOrCreate(cb) many times, it will not create duplicates, it will just load the root metafeed.

Callsback with your root FeedDetails object (see findOrCreate(details, cb))

NOTES:

• metafeed = null - the root metafeed is the topmost metafeed

sbot.metafeeds.findRootFeedId(subFeedId, cb)

Finds the id of the root feed in a meta feed tree, given an id of any feed in that tree, including the root feed id itself.

sbot.metafeeds.branchStream(opts)

Returns a pull-stream source of all "branches" in the meta feed trees.

A "branch" is an array where the first item is the root meta feed and the subsequent items are the children and grandchildren (and etc) of the root. A branch looks like this:

[
  rootDetails,
  childDetails,
  grandchildDetails,
]

Or in general, an Array<Details>. The Details object has the shape { id, purpose, feedFormat, keys, parent, metadata } like what findOrCreate returns. If the details is for a feed that doesn't belong to you, the keys field will not be present.

branchStream will emit all possible branches, which means sub-branches are included. For instance, in the example above, branchStream would emit:

[ rootDetails ]

and

[ rootDetails, childDetails ]

and

[
  rootDetails, childDetails, grandchildDetails,
]

The opts argument can have the following properties:

• opts.root String - a feed ID for a meta feed, only branches that are descendants of this feed ID would appear in the pull-stream source, otherwise all branches from all possible root meta feeds will be included. (Default: null)
• opts.old Boolean - whether or not to include currently loaded (by loadState) trees. (Default: false)
• opts.live Boolean - whether or not to include subsequent meta feed trees during the execution of your program. (Default: true)
• opts.tombstoned Boolean - if false, no tombstoned branches are included in the results; if true, only tombstoned branches are included; if null, all branches are included regardless of tombstoning. (Default: null)

sbot.metafeeds.findAndTombstone(details, reason, cb)

Looks for the first subfeed that matches details and, if found, tombstones it with the string reason.

This is strictly concerned with metafeeds and sub feeds that you own, not with those that belong to other peers.

Arguments:

• details Object - see #findOrCreate
• reason String - describes why the found feed is being tombstoned.

The callback is called with true on the 2nd argument if tombstoning suceeded, or called with an error object on the 1st argument if it failed.

sbot.metafeeds.getTree(root, cb)

Get an object that represents the full metafeed tree under a given root metafeed.

Arguments:

• root String - feed ID for the root metafeed

The tree object has the shape

{
  id,
  purpose,
  feedFormat,
  metadata,
  children: [
    {
      id,
      purpose,
      feedFormat,
      metadata,
      children
    },
  ]
}

The callback is called with the tree object on the 2nd argument if suceeded, or called with an error object on the 1st argument if it failed.

sbot.metafeeds.printTree(root, opts, cb)

Prints (directly to console!) a diagram representation in ASCII for the full metafeed tree under a given root metafeed. Example:

root
└─┬ v1
  ├─┬ 2
  │ └── main
  └─┬ f
    └── chess

Arguments:

• root String - feed ID for the root metafeed
• opts Object - object with additional customizations, such as {id: false} or {id: true}, where id: true will print the feed ID for each feed. Default is id: false

The callback is called with undefined on the 1st argument if printing suceeded, or called with an error object if it failed. There is no 2nd argument.

Advanced API

For lower level API docs, see here.

License

LGPL-3.0