Channels, Feeds & Transactions Discussion group 16th Nov 2021

[kriswest]

Group overview

There are currently 10 open issues in the FDC3 repository , under consideration for the 2.0 release, that relate to the existing concept of channels (both the 'system channels' used via the desktop agent API, and 'app channels' interacted with through the Channels API) and new concepts we've discussed introducing: transactions (a standardized way to make a request and receive a response back) and feeds (a standardized way to request a stream of data, such as a pricing stream).

Relevant issue tags

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

Meeting Date

Thursday 16 Nov 2021 - 9am EST / 2pm GMT

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Meeting notices

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Agenda

• Convene & roll call, review meeting notices (5mins)
• Review action items from previous meeting and other activity (10mins)
  • Channels, Feeds & Transactions Discussion group 4th Nov 2021 #489
  • Rename 'System Channels' 'User Channels' #430
    • 430 Rename System channels User channels to reflect usage #479
  • Make it possible to return data from a raised intent #432
    • 432 Added the ability to return data from a raised intent #495
      • See @nkolba's comments on the PR 432 Added the ability to return data from a raised intent #495
  • Make it possible to resolve intent based on output type as well as input #498
    • 498 Allow intents to be resolved on output type (where they return data) #499
  • Improve spec and documentation of fdc3.addContentListener to mention joining channels #451
    • 451 Improve spec and documentation of fdc3.addContentListener to mention joining channels #492
  • Remove concept of 'global' channel, context broadcast should always be opt-in #308
    • 308 Remove details of the 'global' channel that was deprecated in FDC3 1.2 #496
• Allow intents to be targeted at specific instances of apps #450 (15mins)
  • Work on how to specify instance identity in an implementation-specific way
    • Returning data on running instances
    • Specifying a target instance
• Using Typescript Generics to improve the FDC3 API (15mins)
  • Issue to be raised (@rikoe)
  • see this comment thread for some discussion
• Add the concept of a feed or stream to FDC3 to handle use-cases not covered by channels or intents #433
  • Review revisions to second proposal (10 mins)
• AOB & Adjourn (5mins)

Minutes

• Allow intents to be targeted at specific instances of apps #450
  • Consensus was achieved that future work should focus on proposal A
    • Meeting participants contributed that:
      • Users of the standard should be encouraged to pass metadata objects, returned to them by other API calls, in order to define targets (which allows for some variation of the metadata content between implementations).
      • Rather than introduce a new interface (that extends AppMetadata) to represent an instance of app, we could use an optional field on AppMetadata, that if set, indicates that the object represents an existing instance of an App. Introducing a new type may complicate the signature of API functions.
      • A Desktop agent may want or need to pass more information about an instance than just an id
        • For example, data might be passed to help identify the instance on the screen or provide a friendly name for the instance (in addition to a technical identifier for the instance).
      • There were obvious use-cases for interacting with an instance that you've previously interacted with, e.g. because you opened it (fdc3.open or fdc3.raiseIntent) - but they were unclear on use-cases for finding an existing instance. Such use-cases need to be re-articulated.
        • Other participants mentioned creating your own intent resolver within an app (the use-case for findIntent) or re-using an existing instance that a user launched manually or was otherwise already in the workspace, which they didn't want to duplicate with an additional instance (e.g. a price chart for general use).
        • Changes to raiseIntent/IntentResolution need to be addressed by the proposal
      • A two-step process, where functions like findIntent return only a single AppMetadata, with instances being returned by a findInstance API call are undesirable.
    • This discussion was particularly challenging to follow and future discussions should be centred on a proposal and proposed revisions to it to ensure that the discussion is easier to follow
      • Participants are encouraged to bring concrete proposals or counter-proposals to future meetings
• Next meeting: Tuesday 30th Nov 9am GMT / 2pm EST

Action Items

• @kriswest Attempt to update proposal A based on today's discussion of Adding references and bibliography section #530
• @Julia-Ritter Book next meeting slot / webex: Tuesday 30th Nov 9am GMT / 2pm EST
• @kriswest Next meeting agenda:
  • Using Typescript Generics to improve the FDC3 API (20 mins)
    • Issue to be raised (@rikoe)
    • see this comment thread for some discussion
  • Add the concept of a feed or stream to FDC3 to handle use-cases not covered by channels or intents #433 (15 mins)
    • Review revisions to second proposal
  • Allow intents to be targeted at specific instances of apps #450 (15 mins)
    • Review updated or new proposals
• Rolled over from previous meetings:
  • @rikoe Raise an issue for adding TS generics to FDC3 APIs
    • see this comment thread for some discussion
  • @kriswest Make optional: fdc3.joinChannel and fdc3.leaveChannel #431 (Documentation only)
  • @pbaize All DesktopAgent and Channel APIs should be async #362
  • @kriswest @rikoe Discuss experimental features (stage 1/stage 2) in terms of spec rewrites with LF team
  • @kriswest @thorsent further develop the second proposal for Add the concept of a feed or stream to FDC3 to handle use-cases not covered by channels or intents #433 to address comments from meeting Channels, Feeds & Transactions Discussion group 4th Nov 2021 #489. Consider moving to a PR.

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

[Julia-Ritter]

Julia / FINOS

[kriswest]

🚀 Kris West / Cosaic

[MichaelMCoates]

Michael Coates / OpenFin

[bertrand-s]

Bertrand / Symphony

[hampshan]

Andrew Hampshire @ UBS

[openfin-gavin]

Gavin Lauchlan / OpenFin

[pgn-vole]

Yacine Zalouani / UBS

[lspiro-Tick42]

Leslie Spiro / Glue42

[rikoe]

Riko / Adaptive

[pbaize]

Pierre / OpenFin

[kriswest]

I've posted what minutes I could. Please let me know (in comments) about any omissions or errors