trails/openspec/changes/social-feed/tasks.md
Ullrich Schäfer 94c4f4389e Propose: social-feed (follows + /feed)
Proposal + design + specs + tasks for the social layer. Adds a
`follows` relation (local + federated via ActivityPub), Follow buttons
on public profiles, and a `/feed` route showing public activities from
followed users.

Capabilities:
- New: social-follows (the graph + /feed)
- Modified: public-profiles (Follow button + counts)
- Modified: journal-landing (Feed link on signed-in dashboard)

Design picks:
- Pull-based feed (no fan-out-on-write) — fine at trails.cool scale
- follows keyed by actor IRI, local denorm FK for join perf
- Fedify wires Follow/Accept/Undo; we handle the DB side
- Remote activity ingestion via polling (not push) — tolerates our
  downtime without losing activities

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-04-25 22:26:20 +02:00

5 KiB

1. Schema

  • 1.1 Add follows table to packages/db/src/schema/journal.ts: id UUID PK, follower_id TEXT NOT NULL REFERENCES users, followed_actor_iri TEXT NOT NULL (forward-compatible with federation), followed_user_id TEXT REFERENCES users (always populated for local follows in this change), accepted_at TIMESTAMPTZ (always set to now() in this change but kept nullable for future Pending state), created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT now(). Unique (follower_id, followed_actor_iri). Indexes (follower_id, created_at DESC) and (followed_actor_iri)
  • 1.2 Add profile_visibility TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT 'public' ('public' | 'private') to journal.users. Existing rows pick up the default (= public), preserving current effective behavior for everyone
  • 1.3 Add a small helper localActorIri(username) returning https://{DOMAIN}/users/{username} to keep IRI construction consistent across the codebase
  • 1.4 Run pnpm db:push locally and confirm migration is clean (no prompts, no ambiguity)
  • 1.5 Update the privacy manifest to document the follows relation (which user follows whom on this instance, when) and the new profile_visibility setting

2. Follow / unfollow API

  • 2.1 Add follow.server.ts with followUser(followerId, targetUsername) and unfollowUser(followerId, targetUsername) that resolve the local target, refuse if profile_visibility = 'private' or self-follow, write/delete the row, and return the new state
  • 2.2 POST /api/users/:username/follow route: session-bound, calls followUser, returns 200 with new state or 4xx on refusal
  • 2.3 POST /api/users/:username/unfollow route: session-bound, calls unfollowUser, returns 200 with new state
  • 2.4 Unit tests: follow/unfollow happy path, refusal for private profile, self-follow rejected, idempotent follow/unfollow

3. Follower / following collections

  • 3.1 Queries for follower list and following list of a given user, paginated (50/page), reverse-chron on accepted_at
  • 3.2 Routes /users/:username/followers and /users/:username/following rendering paginated lists with display name + handle + small profile link
  • 3.3 Query + UI for follower and following counts on /users/:username

4. Social feed

  • 4.1 Query listSocialFeed(followerId, limit, cursor) joining followsactivities, returning rows where accepted_at IS NOT NULL AND a.visibility = 'public', reverse-chronological by created_at
  • 4.2 Route /feed (signed-in only; redirects to /auth/login when anonymous) rendering the aggregated cards; reuse the existing activity-card component from the home visitor feed
  • 4.3 Empty state: "You're not following anyone yet" with a link to the instance public feed at /
  • 4.4 Register the route in apps/journal/app/routes.ts
  • 4.5 Add a "Feed" link to the signed-in nav + the personal dashboard header next to "New Activity"

5. Profile page + visibility

  • 5.1 Follow / Unfollow button component — state pulled from the viewer's session + follows row, action submits to the new API route
  • 5.2 Integrate on /users/:username above the public route/activity list; hide for the profile owner
  • 5.3 Follower/following count display linking to the new collection pages
  • 5.4 Update /users/:username loader to gate on profile_visibility = 'public' AND has-public-content (preserve indistinguishable 404)
  • 5.5 Add a "Profile visibility" toggle (Public / Private) to /settings/profile, with a one-line explainer of what each mode does
  • 5.6 Owner-only redirect or "your profile isn't public yet" view for owners whose profile would 404 to visitors

6. Testing

  • 6.1 Unit tests for listSocialFeed query: only follows of accepted_at IS NOT NULL, only public activities, pagination boundary
  • 6.2 E2E: register two local users, A follows B, B posts a public activity → A sees it on /feed; B posts a private activity → A does not
  • 6.3 E2E: Follow button transitions (not following → Follow → Unfollow → not following), profile counts update
  • 6.4 E2E: /feed redirects anonymous visitors to /auth/login
  • 6.5 E2E: empty /feed renders the empty state and link to public feed
  • 6.6 E2E (profile_visibility): owner flips to private → /users/:username returns 404 even with public content, the Follow button vanishes for any prospective follower. Owner flips back to public → previous behavior restored

7. Rollout

  • 7.1 Schema ships via drizzle-kit push --force — additive only, no row backfill needed (column defaults handle existing users)
  • 7.2 Post-deploy: smoke-follow bruno (demo-bot) from a test account, confirm bruno's public activity appears on /feed
  • 7.3 (Follow-up change) social-federation adds Fedify, actor objects, signed inbox/outbox, remote follow + ingestion. The follows schema in this change supports those without migration
  • 7.4 (Follow-up change) Consider a "Local" tab alongside the Following feed that surfaces the instance public feed for signed-in users — not in this change