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mantra-kmp/docs/README.md
Kgothatso Ngako ea11e8b233 refactor: call it a chronicle, and keep "archive" for what a user does to a chat
Archiving a chat is an ordinary thing a user will want to do to a conversation,
and it is not this. This is the group's signed record, handed to a member who
joined after the work was done so their room stops being empty. Two unrelated
meanings of one word in one app is a bug waiting to be written, and
`ChatRoom.archiveRequestedAt` is exactly where they would have met: a column on
the chat row, named for the thing that is not the chat.

So the whole feature is Chronicle now -- `press.mantra.compose.nostr.chronicle`,
`ChronicleEvent` (30327), `ChronicleRequestEvent` (30328), the three tags,
`ChronicleManager`, `docs/member-chronicle.md`. The kind numbers do not move;
only the words do.

**The wire tags move too**, `archiveId` -> `chronicleId` and `archivePage` ->
`chroniclePage`, which is free exactly once. Both kinds are new and there is no
old build to stay compatible with -- the design note says so in as many words --
so the alternative was carrying the old spelling on the wire forever to save a
rename that costs nothing today. The recipient tag stays `p`; it was never ours.

**Schema v14, because two things had the old word written into stored data.**

`ChatRoom.archiveRequestedAt` becomes `chronicleRequestedAt`, renamed rather than
dropped and re-added: while it is set it is the only record that a device with an
empty room has already asked the group for its history, and a device that lost it
mid-flight would ask again on its next launch, and the one after that.

The three `ChatMessage.messageType` strings become their `chronicle*` spellings,
rewritten rather than left to a legacy constant the way `dkgApprovalNeeded` was.
These lines cannot be regenerated -- a chronicle is announced once, when it is
requested, sent and applied -- and an unrecognised type is not skipped by the
transcript. It renders as an ordinary chat bubble, so "Caught up on 12 items"
would come back attributed to a member as something they said.

`MIGRATION_13_14` does both, because Room can rename a column and cannot rewrite
rows in the same breath. `ALTER TABLE ... RENAME COLUMN` needs SQLite 3.25, which
`getRoomDatabase` guarantees by pinning `BundledSQLiteDriver`, and the column is
in no index, no foreign key, and there is not a view or trigger in the database
-- so nothing has to move with it. Five tests hold the two halves apart: the
value survives, the column keeps its position, a room that never asked still
reads as never having asked, the three types are rewritten, and every other type
is left alone.

**`isArchivable` is `isChroniclable`**, on the "recyclable" pattern, and it keeps
its job unchanged: the allowlist that stands between a replayed
`GroupKeyStateEvent` and the apply path.

No behaviour change beyond the rename. 797 tests pass.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-06 16:27:36 +02:00

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# mantra docs
Notes on the parts of this app whose behaviour is not recoverable by reading the
code alone — where the reasoning lives in a protocol, a failure mode that is
silent, or a decision that looked arbitrary and was not.
| document | covers |
|---|---|
| [shared-key-ceremony.md](./shared-key-ceremony.md) | ChillDKG over NIP-17: the rounds, the approval gates, the chat transcript, participant ordering |
| [shared-key-derivation.md](./shared-key-derivation.md) | deriving further keys from the group's threshold key with FROST tweaks — why not BIP32, why no chain code, and the one rule that must not be broken |
| [frost-batch-signing.md](./frost-batch-signing.md) | signing several events in one ceremony — why one nonce can never cover two messages, and the phased schema, wire and UI work that follows from it |
| [marmot-membership.md](./marmot-membership.md) | how members join an MLS group, and the epoch race that makes a missing member look like a successful invite |
| [member-chronicle.md](./member-chronicle.md) | handing a member added after the work was done the group's signed record — why the events are not on the wire at all, and why the room's id is enough to verify them |
| [marmot-direct-messages.md](./marmot-direct-messages.md) | a one-to-one message inside a group as a stock NIP-59 gift wrap — what its MIP-03 carve-out costs, why the sender cannot read their own, and the one query that would broadcast it |
| [mls-skipped-keys.md](./mls-skipped-keys.md) | why a group event that arrives a moment late is dropped for good, which flows trigger it, the quartz fix, and the partial mitigation in this app |
| [long-running-sync.md](./long-running-sync.md) | the chat subscriptions that stay open instead of pulling once per screen — why the request queue could not simply hold one, and how the group filter follows the room list |
| [dead-code.md](./dead-code.md) | code in the sync and relay stack that nothing calls, why each piece is still there, and which of it is a bug rather than a leftover |
| [jvm-target.md](./jvm-target.md) | what desktop support cost, phased — why the native chain was already done, why an empty source set in our phoenix fork was the real blocker, and why DAO tests need none of it |
Start with the ceremony if you are new to this area; the Marmot notes all assume it.
Read the skipped-keys note before debugging any "the other device never got it"
report — it is silent, and it looks like every other kind of delivery failure. The
sync note stands alone, and the dead-code inventory reads as a follow-up to it. The
batch-signing note is a phased plan that has been built: read it after the
derivation note, whose one rule is the same one it is built around. The member
chronicle note is a phased plan that has not been built, and reads as the
membership note's unanswered half: what a member who joins late can be given,
and the one thing they cannot. The
jvm-target note is unrelated to all of them: it is a build and packaging story.