matrix-public-archive/README.md

# Matrix Public Archive

<a href="https://matrix.to/#/#matrix-public-archive:matrix.org"><img src="https://img.shields.io/matrix/matrix-public-archive:matrix.org.svg?label=%23matrix-public-archive%3Amatrix.org&logo=matrix&server_fqdn=matrix.org" alt="Join the community and get support at #matrix-public-archive:matrix.org" /></a>

In the vein of [feature parity with
Gitter](https://github.com/vector-im/roadmap/issues/26), the goal is to make a
public archive site for `world_readable` Matrix rooms like Gitter's archives
which search engines can index and keep all of the content accessible/available.

#### Try it out: [archive.matrix.org](https://archive.matrix.org/) 🌌

<!-- prettier-ignore -->
Room directory homepage | Archive room view
--- | ---
<img alt="A reference for how the Matrix Public Archive homepage looks. Search bar where you can find thousands of rooms using Matrix and homeserver selector. Grid of room cards showing the results." src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/558581/236579462-fee0f9c0-29d2-4c3d-a695-c9eaf0f744ef.png" width="440"> | ![A reference for how the Matrix Public Archive looks. Showing off a day of messages in `#gitter:matrix.org` on 2021-08-06. There is a date picker calendar in the right sidebar and a traditional chat app layout on the left.](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/558581/234765275-28c70c49-c27f-473a-88ba-f4392ddae871.png)

## Demo videos

- [![](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/558581/206083768-d18456de-caa3-463f-a891-96eed8054686.png) May 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KlNILNItGQ&t=1046s): Introducing [archive.matrix.org](https://archive.matrix.org/), the shiny new public instance of the Matrix Public Archive that everyone can share and link to.
- [![](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/558581/206083768-d18456de-caa3-463f-a891-96eed8054686.png) Aug 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KHQSeJTXm0&t=583s) ([blog post](https://matrix.org/blog/2022/08/05/this-week-in-matrix-2022-08-05#matrix-public-archive-website)): A quick intro of what the project looks like, the goals, what it accomplishes, and how it's a new portal into the Matrix ecosystem.
- [![](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/558581/206083768-d18456de-caa3-463f-a891-96eed8054686.png) Oct 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT6KSEqDUf8&t=548s): Showing off the room directory landing page used to browse everything available in the archive.

## Technical overview

We server-side render (SSR) the [Hydrogen](https://github.com/vector-im/hydrogen-web)
Matrix client on a Node.js server (since both use JavaScript) and serve pages on the fly
(with some Cloudflare caching on top) when someone requests
`/archives/r/matrixhq:matrix.org/${year}/${month}/${day}`. To fetch the events for a
given day/time, we use [MSC3030](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc/pull/3030)'s
`/timestamp_to_event` endpoint to jump to a given day in the timeline and fetch the
messages from a Matrix homeserver.

Re-using Hydrogen gets us pretty and native(to Element) looking styles and keeps
the maintenance burden of supporting more event types in Hydrogen.

## FAQ

See the [FAQ page](docs/faq.md).

## Setup

### Prerequisites

- [Node.js](https://nodejs.org/) v18
  - We need v18 because it includes `fetch` by default. And [`node-fetch` doesn't
    support `abortSignal.reason`](https://github.com/node-fetch/node-fetch/issues/1462)
    yet.
  - We need v16 because it includes
    [`require('crypto').webcrypto.subtle`](https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v16.x/api/webcrypto.html#cryptosubtle)
    for [Matrix encryption (olm) which can't be disabled in
    Hydrogen](https://github.com/vector-im/hydrogen-web/issues/579) yet. And
    [`abortSignal.reason` was introduced in
    v16.14.0](https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v18.x/docs/api/globals.html#abortsignalreason) (although we use `node-fetch` for now).
- A Matrix homeserver that supports [MSC3030's](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/3030) `/timestamp_to_event` endpoint
  - [Synapse](https://matrix.org/docs/projects/server/synapse) 1.73.0+

### Get the app running

```sh
$ npm install
$ npm run build

# Edit `config/config.user-overrides.json` so that `matrixServerUrl` points to
# your homeserver and has `matrixAccessToken` defined
$ cp config/config.default.json config/config.user-overrides.json

$ npm run start
```

## Development

```sh
# Clone and install the `matrix-public-archive` project
$ git clone git@github.com:matrix-org/matrix-public-archive.git
$ cd matrix-public-archive
$ npm install

# Edit `config/config.user-overrides.json` so that `matrixServerUrl` points to
# your homeserver and has `matrixAccessToken` defined
$ cp config/config.default.json config/config.user-overrides.json

# This will watch for changes, rebuild bundles and restart the server
$ npm run start-dev
```

If you want to make changes to the underlying Hydrogen SDK as well, you can locally link
it into this project with the following instructions:

```sh
# We need to use a draft branch of Hydrogen to get the custom changes needed for
# `matrix-public-archive` to run. Hopefully soon, we can get all of the custom
# changes mainlined so this isn't necessary.
$ git clone git@github.com:vector-im/hydrogen-web.git
$ cd hydrogen-web
$ git checkout madlittlemods/matrix-public-archive-scratch-changes
$ yarn install
$ yarn build:sdk
$ cd target/ && npm link && cd ..
$ cd ..

$ cd matrix-public-archive
$ npm link hydrogen-view-sdk
```

### Running tests

See the [testing documentation](./docs/testing.md).

### Tracing

See the [tracing documentation](./docs/tracing.md).