MSC4300: Processing status requests & responses

proposals/4300-request-response.md

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+# MSC4300: Requesting and reporting event processing status
+
+Matrix allows clients to exchange both built-in and custom events with other clients in rooms. There
+is, however, no way for a client to understand if the events it sent were actually understood by
+other clients or not. This is problematic as a compatibility mismatch means that the recipient user
+might only be able to see a fallback representation of an event or, in the worst case, nothing at
+all. At the same time, the sender is left wholly unaware of the recipient's experience.
+
+These problems are aggravated when one or both of the participating clients are an automated system
+(a.k.a. bot) which cannot easily issue or respond to generic "Did you see my message?" questions.
+
+The present proposal partially addresses this problem by defining a generic scheme for clients to
+request and receive an explicit processing status for events from other clients.
+
+## Proposal
+
+A new content block `m.request.status` is introduced to request a processing status from other
+clients when sending events. It has the following properties in `content`:
+
+- `from_device` (required, string): The sending device's device ID. Allows recipients to optionally
+  submit their responses privately via to-device messages in the future.
+- `lifetime` (integer): The duration in milliseconds during which the sender will consider responses
+  to this request. Prevents meaningless delayed responses when new or previously disconnected
+  devices encounter requests on older events.
+
+Clients MAY add `m.request.status` as a top-level property in `content` on any event they send.
+
+``` json5
+{
+  "type": "m.pizza",
+  "event_id": "$1",
+  "content": {
+    "m.request.status": {
+      "from_device": "RJYKSTBOIE",
+      "lifetime": 90_000, // 90s
+    },
+    // properties specific to m.pizza
+  }
+}
+```
+
+Clients that receive events containing `m.request.status` content blocks MAY respond to them with a
+new room event type `m.response.status`. The latter contains an `m.reference` relation pointing to
+the original event as well as an `m.response.status` content block with the following properties:
+
+- `from_device` (required, string): The sending device's device ID. Helps clients identify the
+  remote echo of their own responses.
+- `status` (required, string, one of `success`, `error`): Whether the sending device has understood
+  and successfully processed the event.
+- `messages` (array): An optional array of messages to help recipients understand the `status`.
+  - `type`: (required, string, one of `info`, `warning`, `error`): The message category.
+  - `m.text`: (required, object): The message in one or more textual representations as per
+    [MSC1767].
+
+The event `content` MAY contain further properties based on the type of the event that is being
+responded to.
+
+``` json5
+{
+  "type": "m.response.status",
+  "content": {
+    "m.response.status": {
+      "from_device": "EIOBTSKYJR",
+      "status": "error",
+      "messages": [{
+        "type": "error",
+        "m.text": [{ "body": "Unknown event type m.pizza" }]
+      }]
+    },
+    "m.relates_to": {
+      "event_id": "$1",
+      "rel_type": "m.reference",
+    },
+    // optional properties specific to m.pizza
+  }
+}
+```
+
+Clients can check whether a request has expired using `lifetime`, `origin_server_ts` and their local
+clock. Once a request has expired, clients SHOULD refrain from sending `m.response` events
+themselves and ignore any new `m.response` events received from other clients.
+
+## Potential issues
+
+This proposal doesn't strictly define what constitutes successful processing of an event. At a
+minimum, the meaning of success will depend on the type of event sent and the receiving client. An
+archival bot, for instance, may have to decrypt and export an event to consider it processed
+successfully. An instant messaging client for end users, on the other hand, might have to render an
+event in a way that allows the user to interact with it. The kind of rendering needed will be
+specific to the type of event in this case.
+
+It is expected that the mechanism introduced in this proposal will be used as a basis for more
+specialised features that clearly define the semantics of success. Therefore, this aspect is
+consciously left unspecified here.
+
+## Alternatives
+
+Requests for processing statuses could be sent separately from the event being processed, for
+instance, via to-device messages. This, however, introduces complexity because now both messages
+have to be received and decrypted before responses can be sent. It is not clear what benefits, if
+any, this alternative would have over the solution proposed in the present proposal.
+
+Instead of sending processing statuses per event, clients could statically advertise the types of
+events that they are able to understand, for instance, via profiles or state events in a room. This
+would allow senders to look up recipient capabilities ahead of time but would not allow recipients
+to communicate back detailed information about their processing status of individual events. As a
+result, the two mechanisms are not necessarily competing and could also play together.
+
+## Security considerations
+
+Communicating the processing status via room events leaks metadata by revealing client capabilities
+to all room participants. This can be mitigated by transporting the status via to-device messages
+instead. A future proposal may generalise the mechanism introduced here accordingly. Until then,
+clients are not required to respond to status requests under this proposal and MAY simply ignore
+them.
+
+Contrary to the above, persisting processing status responses in timeline events can be necessary in
+scenarios that require auditability.
+
+## Unstable prefix
+
+While this MSC is not considered stable, `m.request.status` and `m.response.status` (the event type)
+should be referred to as `de.gematik.msc4300.request.status` and
+`de.gematik.msc4300.response.status`, respectively.
+
+## Dependencies
+
+None.
+
+  [MSC1767]: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/1767