client_to_server_activitypub.md

ActivityPub Client 2 Server

The ReactJS web frontend buffalo speaks with the python bovine running on a server using a "version" of client to server activity pub. At least that is the goal.

The python code behind the client to server only implementations is in bovine.server.activitypub_client. The code used by both client to server and server to server is in bovine.server.activitypub. Both are implemented as blueprints for quart, so if one doesn't want to support client to server, one simply not include the corresponding blueprint.

Posting

Posting is done pretty much as explained in the document. I'm still deciding what authentication is best. For the munching cow, a version of http signatures is used. For the web frontend currently hard coded access tokens are used.

Something like a Like currently requires a "to" field.

{
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "type": "Like",
  "id": "https://mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge/....",
  "actor": "https://mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge",
  "object": "https://mas.to/users/helgek/...",
  "to": [
    "https://mas.to/users/helgek"
  ]
}

This is a difference to what Mastodon sends out. Note Mastodon's implementation without a to is suspect.

I plan to implement file uploads as multipart/form-encoded. This means that there will be a single request to upload a post with a picture.

Reading

My current plan is to allow an authorized GET on the inbox, e.g.

GET https://mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge/inbox

This will then return an OrderedCollection as specified in the spec. I will probably include a new link type that allows one to fetch newer items, e.g.

{
    "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
    "nextUpdates": "https:/mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge/inbox?min_id=1235",
    "first": "https:/mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge/inbox?max_id=1234",
    "id": "mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge/inbox",
    "last": "mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge/inbox?min_id=0",
    "totalItems": 446,
    "type": "OrderedCollection"
}

or something similar.

Fetching

This is a new endpoint of the form

POST https://mymath.rocks/activitypub/helge/fetch

which allows one to fetch remote resources. Current support is for fetching an url. This means that I can copy the URL of a post on the Fediverse and reply to it using Buffalo. The current process still involves quite a bit of copy and pasting, but it works.

Also still missing is a direct redirection to the just fetched entry.

CORS

The endpoints involved in ActivityPub Client to Server are all accessible from http://localhost:8000/ in order to enable local development against the live version.