Agora Development Plan: December 2025

This document outlines the key goals and progress for the Agora project in December 2025.

1. The Signup Story: Self-Service Onboarding

Goal: Allow users to join the Agora (add their digital garden) immediately via the web interface, removing the need for manual email processing.

Status (as of 2025-12-14)

• Bridge API (agora-bridge):
  • Updated POST /sources to trigger an immediate synchronous git clone.
  • This ensures the user’s content is available on disk immediately after signup.
• Server UI (agora-server):
  • Added a "Join / Add Garden" form to the Settings Overlay (overlay.html).
  • Replaced the static "email us" instructions with an interactive form.
• Client Logic:
  • Implemented form handling in settings.ts to submit data via fetch.
• Server Proxy:
  • Created POST /api/join endpoint in agora.py to proxy requests to the Bridge API.

Next Steps / Refinements

• Asynchronous Processing: Move the git clone in Bridge to a background task (Celery/RQ) to prevent timeouts on large repos.
• Persistent Sync: Ensure pull.py picks up the new source for future updates (currently requires Bridge restart).
• Identity Verification: Implement a mechanism to verify ownership of the repo or identity (e.g., placing a file in the repo, or OAuth).
• Feedback Loop: Show real-time progress of the clone operation in the UI.

2. Hosted Gardens & Forgejo Integration

Goal: Provide a "Host me" option for users who don’t have a Git repository. We will provision a new garden for them on a federated Forgejo instance (git.anagora.org or similar).

Planned Work

• Infrastructure:
  • Deploy Forgejo using Coop Cloud (Abra).
  • Configure federation (ActivityPub/ForgeFed) for repositories.
• Server UI (agora-server):
  • Update Join overlay to include a "Host a garden for me" toggle.
  • Collect email/username for account provisioning.
• Bridge Logic (agora-bridge):
  • Implement a Forgejo API client.
  • Create a new endpoint (e.g., /api/provision_garden) to creating users/repos on Forgejo.
  • Return the new clone URL to the server and auto-add it to sources.yaml.

3. Fediverse Integration: An Active Commons

Goal: Make anagora.org a full Fediverse participant. Users should be able to follow Agora users/nodes and receive updates when new content is published.

Current State

• agora-server/app/federation.py contains initial ActivityPub logic (WebFinger, Actor generation).
• Basic Inbox and Outbox routes exist.

Planned Work

• Follower Management:
  • Implement Inbox handling for Follow activities. (Partially done in user_inbox)
  • Store followers in SQLite (followers table). (Done)
  • Implement Accept activity response. (Done in user_inbox via send_accept thread)
• Content Broadcasting (Outbox):
  • Implemented federate_latest_loop background thread.
  • Polls git_utils.get_latest_changes_per_repo() every 5 minutes (10s in debug).
  • Broadcasts Create activities for new subnodes to followers.
  • Handles images gracefully (links instead of binary dumps).
  • Tracks federation state in federated_subnodes table.
• Star Federation:
  • When a user stars a node in Agora, publish a Like activity.
  • Implemented federate_create to broadcast Like to @agora followers.

4. General Improvements

• Executable Subnodes:
  • Fixed subprocess timeouts to prevent server hangs (moved to Python native timeout + select for output limiting).
  • Implemented 256KB output limit to prevent OOM.
  • Refactored execution logic into util.py.
• UI Polish:
  • Refined Subnode headers (pushed vs normal).
  • Cleaned up Footer layout (custard emoji placement, arrow prefixes).
  • Improved CSS for user links.
• Configuration:
  • Updated API_BASE in DevelopmentConfig to use public URL, fixing browser security warnings.

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*Created by Gemini & Flancian, 2025-12-14.*