mewsfeed

We are currently working towards the first major release of MewsFeed.

Collaborate on GitHub and join our Discord!

Chat With Us

Come join us on mewsfeed. We're talking at the hashtags #mewsfeed and #holochain. Share your feedback by tagging #mewsfeedback!

Follow Us

You can follow the team on mewsfeed at:

@artbrock @zippy @mattyg @jost

Environment Setup

1. Install the holochain dev environment (only nix-shell is required): https://developer.holochain.org/docs/install/
2. Enable Holochain cachix with:

nix-env -iA cachix -f https://cachix.org/api/v1/install
cachix use holochain-ci

3. Clone this repo and cd inside of it.
4. Enter the nix shell by running this in the root folder of the repository:

nix develop
npm install

This will install all the needed dependencies in your local environment, including holochain, hc and npm.

Building the DNA

• Build the DNA (assumes you are still in the nix shell for correct rust/cargo versions from step above):

npm run build:happ

Running the DNA tests

npm run test

UI

To test out the UI:

npm start

To run another agent, open another terminal, and execute again:

npm start

Each new agent that you create this way will get assigned its own port and get connected to the other agents.

Local HWC Development

The deploy/local-dev.sh script manages local infrastructure for testing with the Holo Web Conductor browser extension. It starts conductors, a bootstrap server, the h2hc-linker, and optionally a joining service.

Prerequisites

• Nix develop shell (nix develop)
• Sibling repo checkouts (see layout below)
• h2hc-linker built at ../h2hc-linker (or set H2HC_LINKER_DIR)
• joining-service at ../joining-service (or set JOINING_SERVICE_DIR) — only needed for joining mode
• The HWC browser extension installed

First-time setup

All HWC-related repos must be siblings in the same parent directory:

parent/
├── mewsfeed/               # This repo
├── holo-web-conductor/     # Required (provides client library)
├── joining-service/        # Optional (for joining mode)
└── h2hc-linker/            # Required (linker binary)

Run the setup script from holo-web-conductor to verify the layout and build dependencies:

cd ../holo-web-conductor
nix develop -c ./scripts/holo-dev-setup.sh

Use --clone to automatically clone missing repos, or --download-linker to fetch a prebuilt linker binary instead of building from source.

Then install this repo's dependencies:

cd ../mewsfeed
nix develop -c npm install

Quick Start

Basic mode (no joining service, direct linker connection):

npm run start:hwc

With joining service (invite code auth, default):

npm run start:hwc:joining

With email code auth (verification codes written to files):

AUTH_METHOD=email_code npm run start:hwc:joining

Email codes are written to /tmp/mewsfeed-local-dev/dev-emails/. Read the file to get the verification code.

With email code + hc_auth integration:

AUTH_METHOD=email_code \
HC_AUTH_URL=https://hc-auth-server.example.com \
HC_AUTH_TOKEN=your-api-token \
npm run start:hwc:joining

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
AUTH_METHOD	invite_code	Auth method: invite_code, email_code, open
INVITE_CODES	test-invite-123	Comma-separated invite codes (for invite_code method)
EMAIL_OUTPUT_DIR	/tmp/mewsfeed-local-dev/dev-emails	Directory for email-to-file dev emails
HC_AUTH_URL	(empty)	hc_auth server URL (enables hc_auth notification on join)
HC_AUTH_TOKEN	(empty)	hc_auth API bearer token
HC_AUTH_FORWARD_CLAIMS	(empty)	Comma-separated claim keys to forward to hc_auth (e.g. email,phone)
JOINING_SERVICE_DIR	../joining-service	Path to joining-service repo
H2HC_LINKER_DIR	../h2hc-linker	Path to h2hc-linker repo
JOINING_SERVICE_PORT	3000	Joining service port
LINKER_PORT	8000	Linker port
NUM_CONDUCTORS	2	Number of holochain conductors to start
LINKER_ADMIN_SECRET	local-dev-secret	Linker admin secret

Managing Services

./deploy/local-dev.sh status    # Show running services
./deploy/local-dev.sh stop      # Stop all services

Holo Web Conductor Deployment

For deploying mewsfeed with the Holo Web Conductor (HWC) browser extension, see deploy/DEPLOY.md.

Package

To package the web happ:

npm run package

You'll have the mewsfeed.webhapp in workdir. This is what you should distribute so that the Holochain Launcher can install it.

You will also have its subcomponent mewsfeed.happ in the same folder`.

Documentation

We are using this tooling:

• NPM Workspaces: npm v7's built-in monorepo capabilities.
• hc: Holochain CLI to easily manage Holochain development instances.
• @holochain/tryorama: test framework.
• @holochain/conductor-api: client library to connect to Holochain from the UI.