FDC3 for Web Browsers Discussion group 16th January 2025

[kriswest]

Group overview

Group convened to work on proposals to enable FDC3 use in a web browser, without the use of a browser extension.

The main proposal is now part of the current draft of FDC3 2.2 on the mina branch of the FDC3 repo and website (main/unreleased version), see:

• https://fdc3.finos.org/docs/next/api/ref/GetAgent
• https://fdc3.finos.org/docs/next/api/specs/browserDesktopAgents

Open Pull Requests:

• FDC3 For Web Browsers Implementation #1309
• Updating SessionStorage data format to additionally scope data #1442
• Match event listener names to event type names in fdc3 for web schemas #1459
• Allow apps to control FDC3 for Web JS console logging #1495
• Allow DAs to customize timeoutsand apps to control logging #1497

Relevant issue tags

Current open issues that relate to the above concepts with the label:

Meeting Date

Thursday 16th January 2025 - 11am (US eastern timezone EST) / 4pm (London, GMT)

Zoom info

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Agenda

• Convene & roll call, review meeting notices (5mins)
• Review action items from previous meeting (5mins)
  • FDC3 for Web Browsers Discussion group 19th December 2024 #1478
• Update on the current status of implementation
  • Implementation PR open for review: FDC3 For Web Browsers Implementation #1309
  • NPM alpha release: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@finos/fdc3/v/2.2.0-alpha.1
  • Testing coverage
• Review and merge spec update PRs
  • Updating SessionStorage data format to additionally scope data #1442
  • Match event listener names to event type names in fdc3 for web schemas #1459
  • Allow apps to control FDC3 for Web JS console logging #1495
  • Allow DAs to customize timeoutsand apps to control logging #1497
• AOB & Adjourn

Minutes

• Update on the current status of implementation
  • Nominally complete, with alpha release from PR branch on NPM for testing
    • Not tagged as latest (as it is a pre-release) hence use semver string "^2.2.2-alpha.3"
    • Can and should be tested in both FDC3 for Web scenarios and traditional container-injected implementations - should not cause any breaking changes.
  • Code reviews by @julianna-ciq and @kriswest - now open for review by others, which would be much appreciated
  • Readmes added to the main projects and the demo/reference implementation.
  • Close to 500 tests implemented to ensure correct behaviour
  • Reference implementation is passing all 2.0 conformance tests
  • Next steps are to:
    • Merge the additional PRs agreed (debug logs, cusotmizing timeouts, FDC3 workbench update)
    • Collect reviews from maintainers, merge into main branch and perform beta release to NPM
    • FDC3 Standards Working Group to vote to adopt 2.2.0 release and re-release to NPM as 2.2.0
  • Timeline is dependent on the work of volunteers/maintainers - aim to do so as quickly as possible!
  • @robmoffat is working on getting Sail working with the alpha release.
  • interop.io and Morgan Stanley are also actively working on and testing implementations.
• Updating SessionStorage data format to additionally scope data #1442
  • Re-reviewed changes in this PR
  • Asked for and received consent from group to merge, pending editorial approval from @novavi (received during meeting).
• Match event listener names to event type names in fdc3 for web schemas #1459
  • Briefly re-reviewed changes in this PR
  • Asked for and received consent from group to merge, pending editorial approval from @novavi (received during meeting).
• Allow apps to control FDC3 for Web JS console logging #1495
  • PR covers both additions to standard and implementation to support this
  • Intended to help with debugging DA integrations with FDC3 for the Web
  • A minor correction to docs example was made during the meeting
  • Proposed and received consent for review by @robmoffat of implementation and @novavi for editorial before merging into the main PR
• FDC3 for Web Browsers Discussion group 16th January 2025 #1496
  • PR still in draft while additional test cases are added, otherwise complete
  • Extends default timeouts (necessary to comply with standard which requires DAs to allow at least 15seconds for apps to launch and add listeners, and applies no upper bound. Hence, timeout for API calls that launch apps (open, raiseIntent, raiseIntentForContext extended to 100s by default, 10s for other API calls)
  • Custom timeout values can be set by DA by passing them in the WCP3Handshake message during the connection flow.
    • These are then passed to handlers and listeners in fdc3-agent-proxy that implement the timeouts via the wait and exchange functions
  • There remains the question of what to do when API calls timeout - FDC3 uses standardized errors but doesn't have ones appropriate for timeouts in all APIs (OpenError.AppTimeout and ResolveError.IntentDeliveryFailed relate to the app being started rather than communication with the Desktop Agent).
    • @kriswest proposed to create a new error (in all necessary error enumerations) to use on timeout and that this is needed in 2.2.0
      • There is a similar issue No defined behaviour when incorrect arguments are passed to API calls #1490 relating to the passing of invalid arguments to an API call, which is also not covered and needs to be in future - however, this is not as urgent/needed as one for timeouts.
        • This will need to be covered in the conformance tests - where a timeout error does not need to be (handled in the getAgent implementation and should be covered in its own tests)
      • Consent was asked for and received for creating new timeout errors to use
  • Consent was asked for and received for merging the PR after proposed additions

Action Items

• Add Should the desktop agent support both unqualified appIds and fully qualified ones? #1475 to next SWG agenda
• @kriswest request maintainer/editor reviews of Allow apps to control FDC3 for Web JS console logging #1495 then merge
• @kriswest complete Fdc3 for web impl get agent refactor #1466 (including new errors) then request maintainer/editor reviews and merge
• ALL try out the NPM release in your apps and existing DAs - it should work well in container-based DAs as well as FDC3 for Web implementations, report back on any issues and successful tests.

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

[novavi]

Derek Novavi / S&P Global

[Davidhanson90]

David Hanson - Morgan Stanley 🚀

[Roaders]

Giles Roadnight - Morgan Stanley

[kriswest]

Kris West / interop.io 🚀

[julianna-ciq]

Julianna Langston / interop.io

[paulgoldsmith]

Paul Goldsmith / Morgan Stanley

[pvoznyuk]

Pavlo Vozniuk / RBC CM 🦁

[kemerava]

Elizabeth Kemerava / BlackRock

[robmoffat]

Rob Moffat /Rob Moffat / FINOS 💥

[Lecss]

Alex Dumitru / Citi