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authorKegan Dougal <kegan@matrix.org>2014-08-19 12:30:54 +0100
committerKegan Dougal <kegan@matrix.org>2014-08-19 12:31:17 +0100
commit185a68b473e39e90234130542613c150132318b3 (patch)
treeadacc053089c322b18be90f46752613969fa8c23 /docs/client-server/howto.rst
parentMore unquotes. Also, don't return the room_id on membership state changes, th... (diff)
downloadsynapse-185a68b473e39e90234130542613c150132318b3.tar.xz
Added a first cut for a 'how to' on the client-server API.
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+How to use the client-server API
+================================
+
+If you haven't already, get a home server up and running on localhost:8080.
+
+
+Accounts
+========
+Before you can send and receive messages, you must register for an account. If
+you already have an account, you must login into it.
+
+Registration
+------------
+The aim of registration is to get a user ID and access token which you will need
+when accessing other APIs.
+
+    curl -XPOST -d '{"user_id":"example", "password":"wordpass"}' "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/register"
+
+    {
+        "access_token": "QGV4YW1wbGU6bG9jYWxob3N0.AqdSzFmFYrLrTmteXc", 
+        "home_server": "localhost", 
+        "user_id": "@example:localhost"
+    }
+
+NB: If a user ID is not specified, one will be randomly generated for you. If
+you do not specify a password, you will be unable to login to the account if you
+forget the access token.
+
+Login
+-----
+The aim of login is to get an access token for your existing user ID.
+
+    curl -XGET "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/login"
+
+    {
+        "type": "m.login.password"
+    }
+
+    curl -XPOST -d '{"type":"m.login.password", "user":"example", "password":"wordpass"}' "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/login"
+
+    {
+        "access_token": "QGV4YW1wbGU6bG9jYWxob3N0.vRDLTgxefmKWQEtgGd", 
+        "home_server": "localhost", 
+        "user_id": "@example:localhost"
+    }
+    
+NB: Different home servers may implement different methods for logging in to an
+existing account. In order to check that you know how to login to this home 
+server, you must perform a GET first and make sure you recognise the type. If 
+you do not know how to login, you can GET /login/fallback which will return a 
+basic webpage which you can use to login.
+
+
+Making rooms and sending messages
+=================================
+
+Creating a room
+---------------
+If you want to send a message to someone, you have to be in a room with them. To
+create a room:
+
+    curl -XPOST -d '{"room_alias_name":"tutorial"}' "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/rooms?access_token=QGV4YW1wbGU6bG9jYWxob3N0.vRDLTgxefmKWQEtgGd"
+
+    {
+        "room_alias": "#tutorial:localhost", 
+        "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost"
+    }
+    
+The "room alias" is a human-readable string which can be shared with other users
+so they can join a room, rather than the room ID which is a randomly generated
+string. You can have multiple room aliases per room.
+
+TODO(kegan): How to add/remove aliases from an existing room.
+    
+
+Sending messages
+----------------
+You can now send messages to this room:
+
+    curl -XPUT -d '{"msgtype":"m.text", "body":"hello"}' "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/rooms/%21CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost/messages/%40example%3Alocalhost/msgid1?access_token=QGV4YW1wbGU6bG9jYWxob3N0.vRDLTgxefmKWQEtgGd"
+    
+NB: There are no limitations to the types of messages which can be exchanged.
+The only requirement is that 'msgtype' is specified.
+
+
+Inviting and joining rooms
+==========================
+
+Inviting a user to a room
+-------------------------
+You can directly invite a user to a room like so:
+
+    curl -XPUT -d '{"membership":"invite"}' "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/rooms/%21CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost/members/%40myfriend%3Alocalhost/state?access_token=QGV4YW1wbGU6bG9jYWxob3N0.vRDLTgxefmKWQEtgGd"
+    
+This informs @myfriend:localhost of the room ID !CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost
+and allows them to join the room.
+
+Joining a room via an invite
+----------------------------
+If you receive an invite, you can join the room by changing the membership to
+join:
+
+    curl -XPUT -d '{"membership":"join"}' "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/rooms/%21CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost/members/%40myfriend%3Alocalhost/state?access_token=QG15ZnJpZW5kOmxvY2FsaG9zdA...XKuGdVsovHmwMyDDvK"
+    
+NB: Only the person invited (@myfriend:localhost) can change the membership
+state to 'join'.
+
+Joining a room via an alias
+---------------------------
+Alternatively, if you know the room alias for this room and the room config 
+allows it, you can directly join a room via the alias:
+
+    curl -XPUT -d '{}' "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/join/%23tutorial%3Alocalhost?access_token=QG15ZnJpZW5kOmxvY2FsaG9zdA...XKuGdVsovHmwMyDDvK"
+    
+    {
+        "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost"
+    }
+    
+You will need to use the room ID when sending messages, not the room alias.
+
+Getting events
+==============
+An event is some interesting piece of data that a client may be interested in. 
+It can be a message in a room, a room invite, etc. There are many different ways
+of getting events, depending on what state the client is in.
+
+Getting all state
+-----------------
+If the client doesn't know any information on the rooms the user is 
+invited/joined on, you can get all your state for all your rooms like so:
+
+    curl -XGET "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/im/sync?access_token=QG15ZnJpZW5kOmxvY2FsaG9zdA...XKuGdVsovHmwMyDDvK"
+    
+    [
+        {
+            "membership": "join", 
+            "messages": {
+                "chunk": [
+                    {
+                        "content": {
+                            "body": "@example:localhost joined the room.", 
+                            "hsob_ts": 1408444664249, 
+                            "membership": "join", 
+                            "membership_source": "@example:localhost", 
+                            "membership_target": "@example:localhost", 
+                            "msgtype": "m.text"
+                        }, 
+                        "event_id": "lZjmmlrEvo", 
+                        "msg_id": "m1408444664249", 
+                        "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost", 
+                        "type": "m.room.message", 
+                        "user_id": "_homeserver_"
+                    }, 
+                    {
+                        "content": {
+                            "body": "hello", 
+                            "hsob_ts": 1408445405672, 
+                            "msgtype": "m.text"
+                        }, 
+                        "event_id": "BiBJqamISg", 
+                        "msg_id": "msgid1", 
+                        "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost", 
+                        "type": "m.room.message", 
+                        "user_id": "@example:localhost"
+                    }, 
+                    [...]
+                    {
+                        "content": {
+                            "body": "@myfriend:localhost joined the room.", 
+                            "hsob_ts": 1408446501661, 
+                            "membership": "join", 
+                            "membership_source": "@myfriend:localhost", 
+                            "membership_target": "@myfriend:localhost", 
+                            "msgtype": "m.text"
+                        }, 
+                        "event_id": "IMmXbOzFAa", 
+                        "msg_id": "m1408446501661", 
+                        "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost", 
+                        "type": "m.room.message", 
+                        "user_id": "_homeserver_"
+                    }
+                ], 
+                "end": "20", 
+                "start": "0"
+            }, 
+            "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost"
+        }
+    ]
+    
+This returns all the room IDs of rooms you are invited/joined on, as well as all
+of the messages and feedback for these rooms. This can be a LOT of data. You may
+just want the most recent message for each room. This can be done by applying
+pagination stream parameters to this request:
+
+    curl -XGET "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/im/sync?access_token=QG15ZnJpZW5kOmxvY2FsaG9zdA...XKuGdVsovHmwMyDDvK&from=END&to=START&limit=1"
+    
+    [
+        {
+            "membership": "join", 
+            "messages": {
+                "chunk": [
+                    {
+                        "content": {
+                            "body": "@myfriend:localhost joined the room.", 
+                            "hsob_ts": 1408446501661, 
+                            "membership": "join", 
+                            "membership_source": "@myfriend:localhost", 
+                            "membership_target": "@myfriend:localhost", 
+                            "msgtype": "m.text"
+                        }, 
+                        "event_id": "IMmXbOzFAa", 
+                        "msg_id": "m1408446501661", 
+                        "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost", 
+                        "type": "m.room.message", 
+                        "user_id": "_homeserver_"
+                    }
+                ], 
+                "end": "20", 
+                "start": "21"
+            }, 
+            "room_id": "!CvcvRuDYDzTOzfKKgh:localhost"
+        }
+    ]
+
+Getting live state
+------------------
+Once you know which rooms the client has previously interacted with, you need to
+listen for incoming events. This can be done like so:
+
+    curl -XGET "http://localhost:8080/matrix/client/api/v1/events?access_token=QG15ZnJpZW5kOmxvY2FsaG9zdA...XKuGdVsovHmwMyDDvK&from=END"
+    
+    {
+        "chunk": [], 
+        "end": "215", 
+        "start": "215"
+    }
+    
+This will block waiting for an incoming event, timing out after several seconds.
+A client should repeatedly make requests with the "from" query parameter with
+the value of "end" (in this case "215").
+
+NB: The timeout can be changed by adding a "timeout" query parameter, which is
+in milliseconds. A timeout of 0 will not block.
+