buzz/docs/bridge-channel-window.md

Bridge /query Extension: Channel Window

Normative spec: NIP-CW is the canonical, standalone specification of the channel window (kinds 39005/39006, filter extension, cursor and trust semantics). This document remains as the ratified engineering contract and internal design record; where wording differs, NIP-CW governs.

Status: frozen contract v2 (2026-07-03) — GUI read-model overhaul. Reviewed by: Mari (relay ground truth), Wren (client core), Quinn (spec guardian), Perci (NIP landscape). Ratified in #buzz-gui-formal-relay-interaction-spec, thread a7c68013.

The channel window is how Buzz clients page a channel timeline by top-level rows instead of raw events. It is a raw-filter extension on the existing HTTP bridge POST /query — the same extension family as before_id and thread_cursor. There is no new endpoint, and the wire carries only signed nostr events.

Vanilla NIP-01 cannot express "messages with no reply e-tag" (filters have no negation), which is why generic nostr clients page raw events and reassemble threads client-side. This relay computes thread_metadata (depth, root, reply counts) at ingest, so it can serve the top-level view directly. The WS REQ path ignores all fields below via nostr::Filter's unknown-field behavior — generic clients degrade gracefully to a normal full-event query; they never see a wrong-but-plausible timeline.

Request

A standard bridge filter plus extension fields:

{
  "kinds": [9],
  "#h": ["<channel-uuid>"],
  "limit": 50,
  "top_level": true,
  "include_summaries": true,
  "include_aux": true,
  "until": 1751500000,
  "before_id": "<64-hex event id>"
}

• top_level: true — routes this filter to the top-level SQL view. Requires exactly one #h channel the caller can access.
• limit — row budget. Counts row events only; summaries, aux, and bounds overlays never consume it.
• until + before_id — the composite request cursor (created_at, id) of the last retained row from the previous page. Both or neither. top_level with until but no before_id is rejected (400): the window path has no timestamp-only fallback, ever. Neither = head request.
• include_summaries / include_aux — opt-in overlay/closure appends.

page/OFFSET is not honored on the window path.

Top-level predicate

A row is top-level iff depth IS NULL OR depth = 0 OR (depth = 1 AND broadcast = true) in thread_metadata (v1 ruling: NULL — an event ingested before thread metadata existed — counts as top-level; the harness legacyReply scenario decides whether a backfill migration is needed). Deleted rows (deleted_at IS NOT NULL) are excluded before the limit.

Ordering and cursor

Rows are ordered (created_at DESC, id ASC) — the same composite every other read path uses. The next-page cursor is the (created_at, id) of the last retained row; the server echoes it in the 39006 bounds overlay as next_cursor. Keyset comparison is created_at < $ts OR (created_at = $ts AND id > $id); dense seconds paginate without loss or duplication by construction.

has_more is a server fact: the relay probes limit + 1 rows after all predicates (access, deletion, top-level, kinds), returns at most limit, and reports the probe result in 39006. The sentinel row never reaches the wire, and no closure is computed for it. Clients must not infer exhaustion from row count (rows < limit does not imply anything on an exact-multiple final page) — 39006.has_more is the only authority.

Response

The existing flat bridge shape: a JSON array of signed nostr events. Clients partition by kind before any cursor math:

1. Rows — the top-level events, in keyset order.
2. Aux closure (include_aux) — reactions (7), deletions (5, 9005), and edits (40003) targeting the retained rows by #e, plus deletions targeting those aux events (the transitive second hop, e.g. a delete-of-a-reaction). One round trip; no client #e fan-out.
3. Thread summaries (include_summaries) — one relay-signed kind:39005 per row that has replies.
4. Window bounds — exactly one relay-signed kind:39006 per window response.

kind:39005 — thread summary overlay

• tags: ["e", <root-id>], ["d", <root-id>], ["h", <channel-id>]
• content: {"reply_count":n,"descendant_count":n,"last_reply_at":ts|null,"participants":["<hex-pubkey>",...]} (participants: up to 10, most recent first)
• Signed by the relay keypair. Synthesized at query time, never stored. Clients treat it as replace-by-target metadata keyed by the e/d tag (the d tag gives parameterized-replaceable semantics natively); it is never a row, never a cursor input, never durable timeline history.

kind:39006 — window bounds overlay

• tags: ["d", "<channel_id>:<request-cursor-or-head>"], ["h", "<channel_id>"]
• content: {"has_more": bool, "next_cursor": {"created_at": ts, "id": "<hex>"} | null}
• next_cursor = null ⇔ has_more = false.
• d-tag suffix serialization (canonical): head for a head request, else <created_at>:<event_id> — decimal unix seconds, then the full 64-char lowercase hex id, colon-delimited. Clients must verify the suffix equals the cursor they sent and reject the overlay on mismatch.
• Reserved field: oldest_retained (retention gap), added without a wire break if needed.
• Same overlay rules as 39005: relay-signed, query-time, never stored, never a row or cursor input.

Both kinds are relay-only: client submission is rejected at ingest.

Client obligations (frozen)

• Pages are immutable authoritative history chained cursor→cursor; live events land in a separate overlay, never spliced into pages.
• Reconnect refetches page 0 and re-arms the live subscription (since: now); deeper pages need no repair path.
• Replies never enter the channel timeline; the thread panel uses the existing thread_cursor surface (#1418).

Siblings

before_id (requires until), thread_cursor/thread_cursor_id, depth_limit, feed_types — see bridge.rs. All are bridge-only raw filter extensions invisible to vanilla relays and clients.