Owner decision 2026-10-04: fix the mismatches and every other mismatch of the same kind.
- One counting rule (Domain/Privacy/Counted), Mastodon's. It is used for a persona's statuses_count, its outbox
totalItems, NodeInfo localPosts and the instance status_count, which used to count four different things. It
counts every post that is neither deleted nor a DM, boosts included, and circle and located posts too (owner
decision). A group's count includes its remote members' posts.
- Users. Personas of banned or deleted roots no longer count, and are not found in search. NodeInfo now gives
activeMonth and activeHalfyear, and the v2 instance gives active_month instead of a constant 0.
- replies_count counts only public and unlisted replies, so it no longer tells anyone that a private reply exists.
Migration _012 recounts it.
- A remote account that deletes itself takes everything out of every count (GoneActors): its likes, downvotes,
reactions and poll votes go and their counters come back, as do its boosts', replies' and quotes' counts, and its
notifications. Lookups, account lists, search and favourited_by no longer show it. Migration _012 applies this to
accounts already gone.
- Deleting a post also deletes its pins and the local boosts of it.
- /stalking gives the same total as following_count. Members are still never listed, and hide_collections is now
always true, since the setting never did anything.
- Joining a community by invitation is following it, so /flock and /groupies agree; leaving unfollows.
- Search. Anyone may search, as on Mastodon; resolve and offset need a sign-in, offset pages, and deleted accounts
are never found.
- notifications/unread_count counts what the list shows, and the owner's follower and following lists page with
Link.
- The instance API advertises what is enforced:
- max_characters, now enforced with a 422;
- max_pinned_statuses = MaxPins;
- the media types and limits MediaService and MediaOptions accept;
- PollService's limits;
- the configured languages;
- no streaming URL until streaming exists.
domain_count counts the servers we have exchanged with; which ones stays unpublished (peers is empty).
- Routes Mastodon answers now answer instead of 404:
- directory, tags/{name}, timelines/link and identity_proofs;
- instance/languages, translation_languages, domain_blocks and privacy_policy;
- the v1 and v2 notification policy, and notification requests.
Also, from phase 3: a recovered password ends /clientapi sessions through a per-root SessionStamp claim instead of
comparing the JWT's whole-second nbf with the change time. That comparison let a token issued in the same second
survive, which made a test flaky.
671 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ELjqpznMFMNrJoJUj6K5p2
Owner decision 2026-10-04: fix the account privacy findings.
- Sign-in. Every failure answers "That username and password do not match." after the same work: an unknown login
is hashed against a decoy, and the comparison is constant-time. "Banned" is told only to someone who gave the right
password. This covers /clientapi/user/login, /invitation/login and /oauth/login.
- Recovery.
- Every request answers the same sentence and queues a SendRecovery job, whether or not the account exists or has an
email. The lookup, the code and SMTP move to RecoveryJob, so neither the answer nor its timing says anything.
- Codes are kept only as a SHA-256 hash, for one hour. Migration _011 drops the plaintext ones, which never expired.
- A recovered password ends every session of the root. RootSessions sets CredentialsChangedAt, which JwtEvents
checks against the JWT's issue time, now stamped as nbf, and revokes each persona's OAuth tokens and authorizations.
- Deleting a root (RootRemoval: the admin route, or the restored self-delete at /clientapi/user/delete, which asks for
the password).
- Its sessions end.
- Each persona and each group it owns sends Delete{Actor} to its followers, its members and the accounts it follows.
- The personas' posts are emptied.
- /peasants/{name} answers 410 with a Tombstone (formerType Person or Group), as do its inbox and WebFinger, through
LocalActorService.Gone. The names stay reserved.
- The root keeps only a unique `deleted-{id}` name; the second deletion on an instance used to collide on
"Deleted user".
Also, from phase 2's pasture: GoToSocial files a circle post like a DM and shows it only to accounts it mentions. Each
member's copy, and a member's refetch, now also mentions that member silently. The GoToSocial scenario checks circle
posts in conversations, like DMs, and they pass there now, as on Mastodon.
657 tests pass.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ELjqpznMFMNrJoJUj6K5p2
Owner decisions (2026-10-04, recorded in docs/ROADMAP.md): production runs everything that is built, and nothing waits
on a person running a command.
- Geolocation updates itself. GeoUpdater, a hosted service, checks daily whether each DB-IP Lite database was built this
month. If not, it fetches this month's, or last month's early in the month. It installs a file only once it opens as
the right kind of database, then swaps it in atomically, and the locator reloads at once. Lookups now run under the
lock, so a reload can no longer dispose a reader mid-lookup. The systemd timer, its script and their setup.sh lines
are gone: the root step they needed never happened, and none is needed now. /stargazing names the database in use.
- The admin CLI runs after the app is built, with every service and nothing started.
- `create-root <login> [--admin]` takes the password on stdin; it is how the first login is made while sign-up is
closed.
- `smoke <persona>` keeps the root `deploy-smoke` and an undiscoverable persona, and gives the root a new password
on every run.
- The deploy signs in as @thepra. It runs the CLI, gets a token through the real OAuth flow (tools/smoke/oauth.sh,
moved out of the pasture's privapub_token, which now uses it), checks the signed-in API and that @thepra is
undiscoverable, then revokes the token. PRIVAPUB_SMOKE_TOKEN is gone.
- The deploy also fails when:
- NodeInfo and the instance API disagree about registrations;
- /stargazing does not say the crawler is on;
- the geolocation databases are missing or more than 40 days old.
- The crawler is on in production, seeded with ten large servers of different kinds. FEDERATION.md now describes it
and how to opt out.
- One registrations switch (Registrations:Mode, default Invitations; Open in tests and the pasture). It is read by
open sign-up (403 when closed), NodeInfo `openRegistrations`, and v1 and v2 of the instance API, so they can no longer
disagree. Before, NodeInfo said open and the instance API said closed. Group invitations always work, so
invites_enabled is true.
- A persona edit through /clientapi no longer resets what the Mastodon API set (discoverable, locked, quote policy…):
the theme is merged into the settings instead of replacing them.
650 tests pass. The deploy's smoke step was rehearsed against the pasture's PrivaPub.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ELjqpznMFMNrJoJUj6K5p2
Tests through the real routes of PeasantsController, WellKnownController and
UsersController, on the whole server under test (34 new tests):
- FederationGetTests: the actor document (activity+json, SPKI key at
#main-key owned by the actor, sharedInbox, published = PublishedOn's day,
no creation date, no root); ld+json; browsers sent to /@name; Vary: Accept;
/users 301; the outbox's totalItems and ?page=true&max_id paging across
the 20-item boundary, boosts as Announces, and no followers-only, direct,
located, federated-copy or deleted post; /groupies and /stalking naming
nobody; /trophies (public pins, newest first) and /tattoos; /scribbles
(public and unlisted 200, browsers redirected, followers-only, direct and
located 404, deleted 410 Tombstone); a circle post only for a signed member
or its instance actor; a circle's /groupies, /flock and /wardens only for
members; /grunts create- and announce- ids; /parrot-licences 200, revoked
410, wrong author 404; secure mode's 401 for every unsigned GET but the
instance actor's.
- WellKnownTests: WebFinger by acct:, @-prefixed, bare, upper-case and actor
URI; other domains, unknown names, a root's login name and no resource;
the instance actor, a community, a circle (answered: current behaviour);
NodeInfo links, 2.0 and 2.1 naming no root, unknown versions 404; usage
counting only public, unlisted, non-boost local posts (Exclusive).
- InboxRouteTests: all three inboxes accept a signed delivery and refuse
junk (400), unsigned (401), a bad Digest, a two-hour-old Date, a signature
for another host and a swapped body (401); an unknown persona's /mouth is
404; ld+json with the ActivityStreams profile is accepted; a signer whose
actor answers 503 gets 503 with Retry-After; the 301st unsigned POST from
one address is 429 while a signed server from it is not.
- PersonaSeparationHttpTests: with a sibling persona and its community on
the same login, every GET under /api (filled with the persona's ids) plus
search, lookup and relationships, and a crawl of everything federation
publishes about the persona (actor, outbox pages, collections, scribbles,
grunts, WebFinger, NodeInfo, /@ pages), never name the sibling, its
community or the login.
Fixed:
- A circle's /groupies told anyone how many followers (members) it has,
while its /flock and /wardens were already for members only; it now
answers 404 to anyone but a signed member or a member's instance actor.
- WebFinger answered 404 to a bare user@domain or @user@domain resource,
which Mastodon, GoToSocial and Pleroma all accept; it now treats them as
acct: (noted in docs/INTEROP.md).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01ELjqpznMFMNrJoJUj6K5p2
Domain/Statuses/StatusService takes a persona, not a root, and is what
/clientapi and the Mastodon API share:
- Publish renders Markdown (clientapi) or plain text (Mastodon clients),
checks the persona may see the post it replies to, opens or reuses the
conversation for a direct post from its recipients and mentions, fans
out and hands the Create to the outbox;
- Edit keeps a revision and sends Update{Note}; Remove soft-deletes and
returns the post, so a client can delete and redraft;
- Favourite and Reblog work on anything the persona can see and send Like,
Announce and their Undo to the author (and, for boosts, to followers);
boosts are refused for anything but public and unlisted posts.
PostsService is now the clientapi wrapper that checks the root owns the
persona. A persona's own boost is a local row: the outbox renders it as
Announce, /grunts/announce-{id} resolves, and object endpoints, profile
pages and NodeInfo skip it. ContentFormat gains Plain.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_012CzABvBkbcFqoHdmi8b9WB
VisibilityPolicy.IsPublic is the single expression for "anyone may see
this" (Public or Unlisted, not deleted); the outbox, the object and
activity endpoints, the HTML pages and NodeInfo all use it instead of
spelling it out. CanSee answers for a persona: the author, a mentioned
local persona, a conversation member for Direct, a circle member for
Circle; followers-only waits for P1.2's follows.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_012CzABvBkbcFqoHdmi8b9WB
/@user and /@user/{id} are Razor pages showing an avatar's or community's
public and unlisted posts: no scripts, a strict CSP, no-referrer, noindex,
and an alternate link to the ActivityPub document. A client asking them
for activity+json is redirected to the actor or note, and the actor and
note redirect browsers here.
NodeInfo answers 2.1 as well as 2.0 (repository, homepage, a link to
FEDERATION.md) and counts only public local posts.
FEDERATION.md (FEP-67ff) lists the protocols, FEPs, route names,
activities and the security rules a peer will notice.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_012CzABvBkbcFqoHdmi8b9WB
Local text (Domain/Content/ContentRenderer): Markdig with raw HTML off and
autolinks, or plain text for API clients; then @user and @user@host are
resolved (locally or through WebFinger) into Mastodon's h-card markup and
#tags into hashtag links, skipping code, links and e-mail addresses. A
post stores the result, its mentions and its tags, and is delivered to
the mentioned actors and the parent's author as well as to followers.
Renderer:
- Mastodon's @context (toot, schema PropertyValue, discoverable,
indexable, blurhash, focalPoint, featured, alsoKnownAs, movedTo) and
FEP-2c59's webfinger;
- an actor's url is its HTML page, its fields are PropertyValue
attachments, published is cut to the day and indexable is false;
- a note's content is the stored rendering; a title becomes name and a
bold first line, a content warning without its own text is summarised
by the title or "Content warning"; Mention and Hashtag tags, contentMap,
updated, and to/cc by visibility.
Routes take the agreed names: /groupies, /stalking, /scribbles/{id},
/grunts/{id} (a Create resolves), /whispers/{id} for a DM's context. The
outbox is a collection with a first page, paged by max_id. A browser
asking for an actor or a note is redirected to /@user, and WebFinger's
profile-page points there.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_012CzABvBkbcFqoHdmi8b9WB
S8: a direct message joins a conversation only when its participants are
exactly that conversation's members, found through a new
DmGroup.ParticipantsKey (a hash of the sorted members). A remote context
no longer decides anything: it let anyone who knew a conversation's
context post into it, and joining by context while dropping a participant
would have shown a reply to someone it was not addressed to. A context is
kept only when it is on the author's origin. Sending a DM to the same
people again reuses their conversation instead of opening a new one.
S9: Group.Kind is Circle or Community. A circle is not a federated actor:
its actor, collections, WebFinger and inbox answer 404, a remote Follow is
refused, and posts in it are IsLocalOnly - never delivered, never in an
outbox, never served. Communities keep today's behaviour until P4.
Migration _003 makes every existing group a circle, marks their posts
local-only and backfills the conversation keys.
End-to-end inbox tests sign real deliveries from a fake peer: a context
injection, a forged activity id, a note attributed to someone else, a
cross-origin object, a bad signature, junk bodies and a Follow of a circle.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_012CzABvBkbcFqoHdmi8b9WB
Services/Federation and Controllers/ServerToServer become
Federation/{Actors,Signing,Inbox,Outbox,Rendering,Controllers}, the first step
of the roadmap's layout. No type, route or behaviour changes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_012CzABvBkbcFqoHdmi8b9WB
thepraandClaude Opus 5.5