FDC3 for Web Browsers Discussion group 17th October 2024

[kriswest]

Group overview

Group convened to work on proposals to enable FDC3 use in a web browser, without the use of a browser extension.

Pull requests:

• FDC3 for Web specification #1191
• FDC3 For Web Browsers Implementation DO NOT MERGE #1309
• Fdc3 for web impl refactor rm #1366
• Make window.fdc3 optional #1386
• Use TS Morph to generate type predicates #1387

Relevant issue tags

Current open issues that relate to the above concepts with the label:

Meeting Date

Thursday 17th Oct 2024 - 11am (US eastern timezone EDT) / 4pm (London, BST)

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Agenda

• Convene & roll call, review meeting notices
• Review action items from previous meeting
• Update on current status of release & discussion of how to get involved
• window.fdc3 should be marked as optional #1385
  • Make window.fdc3 optional #1386
• Use TS Morph to generate type predicates #1387
• Rewrite channel selector to use updated message types #1345
• Q&A time and/or review of PR branches
• AOB & Adjourn

Minutes

• Update on current status of release & discussion of how to get involved
  • Received consent from standards working group, PR is out to maintainers to sign off.
    • Before we can release 2.2, the software PR also has to be accepted by the community.
    • Rob Moffat has worked on an implementation, and tests showing that it is conformant as far as the messages are concerned and that produces a conformant Desktop Agent
      • This includes the getAgent() method, which is the new recommended way to retrieve a DA implementation
    • Request a review meeting with Rob, to help introduce people to the changes in the PR (which has 500+ files changed). It is imperative that we get more involvement into the review and the code.
• window.fdc3 should be marked as optional #1385
  • Kris is supportive, and the change is small.
  • Question: Would this change cause previously-passing TS files to start throwing compile errors.
    • Yes, that could happen - this was a potential runtime error in previous versions as it was implicit that window.fdc3 might not always be set (hence why we needed an fdc3Ready event).
    • @paulgoldsmith asked 'How do we decide what’s a breaking change?'
    • @kriswest: The Standards Working Group decides, usually on the recommendation of the FDC3 maintainers and Editors
    • @novavi: That sounds like it’s subjective
    • @kriswest Yes, and this PR is borderline
  • Needs a decision of the SWG - to be added ot the next SWG agenda
  • Make window.fdc3 optional #1386
    • Making window.fdc3 optional necessitates some changes in Methods.ts which developed compile errors
    • The meeting spent some time looking at the Method.ts tests and changes needed - there is small TypeScript syntax mystery to solve - details in the comments on the issue
• Use TS Morph to generate type predicates #1387
  • @Roaders introduced the PR, which modifies the generated BrowserTypes.ts file after generation via post-processing with TSMorph.
    • Creates functions that can validate a message conforms to a particular schema
    • Creates 3 new unions representing the different classes of message
  • The schemas+quicktype already generate a type that represents the classes of message (AppRequestMessage, AgentResponseMessage, AgentEventMessage) but not as a union of the individual message types - rather each of those is single type with a union of strings in the type field, which is not as useful for discriminating messages.
  • @Roaders to explore not relying on the interface name to build the union types. If we could instead check that a given interface is logically compatible with AgentResponseMessage, AgentEventMessage or AppRequestMessage and use that to build the union types that would be better.
• Rewrite channel selector to use updated message types #1345
  • There is a nest of PR’s that need to be wrangled when Rob gets back. Julianna is holding off on merging anything until after that time.
  • Fdc3 for web impl update #1392 may usurp some of the outstanding requests for 1345.
• @kriswest reviewed the monorepo structure in FDC3 For Web Browsers Implementation DO NOT MERGE #1309

Action Items

• @kriswest add window.fdc3 should be marked as optional #1385 to next SWG meeting agenda
• @kriswest arrange for Readme content to be added to FDC3 For Web Browsers Implementation DO NOT MERGE #1309 and to arrange a review or introduction to the PR to kick of more involvement from other community members in review and contribution (including @novavi)
• @Roaders to take another look at Use TS Morph to generate type predicates #1387 as noted above

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

[paulgoldsmith]

Paul Goldsmith / Morgan Stanley

[kriswest]

Kris West / interop.io 🚀

[novavi]

Derek Novavi / S&P Global

[julianna-ciq]

Julianna Langston / interop.io

[Roaders]

Giles Roadnight / Morgan Stanley 🚀

[openfin-johans]

Johan Sandersson / Here 🎁

[VedPrakashJha-FMR]

VedPrakashJha-FMR / Fidelity Investments

[watson-ew]

Chris Watson / Elgin White 👋

[psmulovics]

Peter Smulovics / Morgan Stanley