# Alarm — service API (v1, frozen) The Alarm service is the server half of the Dcntrlized alert feature: one user (the **admin**) creates an alert and holds an admin token; everybody else joins by scanning the alert's **subscribe token** as a QR code; the admin can trigger and disarm the alert at will, and a trigger must fire **live** on every subscribed client. - Container / DNS name: `alarm` - One plaintext listener inside the container: `:8080` (dev host port `8088`) - Module: `git.dcntrlized.org/Dcntrlized/Alarm` - Image: `192.168.122.183:3000/dcntrlized/alarm:dev` Everything — the API, the auth proxy and the WebSocket — rides that **single port**. There is no second listener and no TLS on the service itself (an edge proxy terminates TLS). ### How a client reaches this service An instance exposes **one** port. Apps and phones do not address a service directly — not this one, not any other: they address the instance, and Maestro's data plane relays the request. There is no per-service hostname, and direct service access is not a supported deployment. So a client's base URL is `http(s)://`, and exactly three namespaces are reachable (`Maestro/src/handlers/dataplane/`, one allowlist, one dispatcher, HTTP or WebSocket by upgrade presence): | Public URL | Service path | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | `{base}/api/alarm/action/{actionName}` | `/action/{actionName}` | the action API documented below | | `{base}/api/alarm/auth/{path...}` | `/auth/{path...}` | shared-auth proxy (`login`, `register`, `refresh`, `me`, …) | | `{base}/api/alarm/ws/alarm` | `/ws/alarm` | the live alarm socket (WebSocket upgrade) | - The data plane is **not** behind Maestro's owner gate: `Maestro/src/main.go` registers it deliberately outside `RequireSession`, because its callers are apps and phones that hold no Maestro session and must never be handed the instance operator's cookie. **The service is the gate** — Alarm validates the access token and the alert token itself and answers `401`/`403` on its own. History for the next reader: the action surface shipped ungated, was wrapped in the owner gate by commit `2ffdf77`, and that gate was a regression for phone traffic — not a design. - The query string is forwarded **verbatim** (tokens live there) and `X-Access-Token` is forwarded untouched. `Authorization` and `Cookie` are **not** forwarded, so Alarm never sees them; `Sec-WebSocket-*` is rebuilt by the relay. - The service's answer is the answer: status, body, `Content-Type` and end-to-end headers are mirrored byte-for-byte, redirects included. Maestro envelopes **only its own** failures — `404 ERR_NOT_FOUND` (unknown service/namespace), `409 ERR_NOT_RUNNING` (stopped container), `502 ERR_UPSTREAM_UNREACHABLE`, `500 ERR_INTERNAL` (its own plumbing) — with `{"error":{"code","message"}}`. Hop-by-hop headers and `Set-Cookie` are stripped by the relay; Alarm sets no cookies, so that changes nothing here. - `/config` and `/_manifest` are deliberately **unreachable** through the data plane: `/config` is Maestro's own ES256-signed edge and exposing it would let a caller skip the mint; `/_manifest` is consumed by Maestro, not by clients. The manifest is documented below for completeness. ## Routes | Route | Purpose | | --- | --- | | `GET /_manifest` | service manifest consumed by Maestro | | `/auth/*` | shared-auth proxy (`dcntrlized-auth`), unchanged from every other service | | `/action/{actionName}` | the action API documented below | | `GET /ws/alarm` | the live alarm socket | `/ws/alarm` is deliberately registered on the **outer** mux, outside the logging/CORS chain: the connection is hijacked and the subscribe token travels in the query string, so it must never reach a request logger. ## Envelope and authentication `/action/*` uses the platform envelope: ```json { "payload": { "...": "action specific" } } ``` - `POST`, `PUT` and `DELETE` read the envelope from the body. Unknown fields **inside `payload` are ignored** (forward compatible); an unknown top-level envelope field is rejected by the dispatcher with a plain-text `400` (see *Errors* below). - `GET` carries no body: the same actions take their arguments from the query string, e.g. `GET /action/getAlert?alertId=…`. - Every action that addresses an alert accepts **`alertId` under the alias `id`**, both as a query parameter and as a payload key: `?id=` and `{ "payload": { "id": "" } }` work exactly like `alertId`. Precedence is query `alertId` → query `id` → payload `alertId` → payload `id`; the first non-empty one wins. **Every alert action requires a verified access token** in the `X-Access-Token` header (minted by `dcntrlized-auth`). A missing, malformed or expired token is always: ```json { "error": { "code": "ERR_UNAUTHORIZED", "message": "…" } } ``` with HTTP `401`. The service never trusts a user id, name or email from the payload — identity comes from the token only. The shared-auth proxies (`login`, `register`, `refresh`, `delete`, `logout`, `me`) are the exception: `login`/`register` mint the token, `me`/`logout`/`refresh`/`delete` forward whatever header the caller sent and let `dcntrlized-auth` decide. Two further credentials exist, both **in the payload** (never in a header): - `adminToken` — the alert's admin secret. Minted once by `createAlert`, stored only as a SHA-256 hash server-side, and required by the destructive actions. - `subscribeToken` — the shareable secret rendered as the QR code. It is minted once per alert and never rotates (subscribers are permanent for the alert's lifetime); it is the only thing a joining client needs. Errors are **not uniform across the request pipeline**. Clients must know where the boundary is. **Action-level errors** — everything the action handlers themselves return — use the platform envelope: ```json { "error": { "code": "ERR_…", "message": "human readable" } } ``` That covers every code in the table below (401/403/404/409/500) as well as the WebSocket rejections. **Dispatch-level errors** are the exception. They are produced by the layer that routes `/action/{actionName}` by HTTP method, *before* any handler or error helper runs, and they are **plain text** (`text/plain; charset=utf-8`), never JSON. A client that calls `JSON.parse` on every error body throws on exactly these — check `Content-Type` first, and treat a non-JSON body as a generic failure: | Situation | HTTP | Body | Example | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | unknown action name for this verb | `501` | `Action not implemented` | `POST /action/getAlerts` (typo), `GET /action/triggerAlert`, **any** `PUT /action/` | | malformed request envelope | `400` | the JSON decoder's message | body is not valid JSON, has an unknown **top-level** field (`DisallowUnknownFields`), or cannot be decoded into the envelope — e.g. `json: unknown field "payloads"` | | unsupported HTTP verb | `405` | `method not allowed` | `PATCH /action/createAlert` | Consequences worth internalising: - `PUT` is routed but implements nothing, so **every** `PUT /action/` is `501` — including for actions that exist under another verb. - A known action sent with the *wrong* verb is also `501`, not `405`. `405` is reserved for a verb outside `GET`/`POST`/`PUT`/`DELETE`. - `GET` never decodes a body, so it can only produce the `501` row. - Only `POST`, `PUT` and `DELETE` can produce the plain-text `400`. ## Error codes | Code | HTTP | Meaning | | --- | --- | --- | | `ERR_VALIDATION` | 400 | malformed payload, bad uuid, field too long, bad query parameter | | `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED` | 401 | missing/invalid access token | | `ERR_ALERT_TOKEN_INVALID` | 403 | the `adminToken` or `subscribeToken` does not match this alert | | `ERR_ALERT_NOT_ADMIN` | 403 | a valid access token, but not the alert's admin, for an admin-only action | | `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND` | 404 | no such alert (also returned instead of 403 where hiding existence matters) | | `ERR_ALERT_NOT_SUBSCRIBED` | 404 | caller is neither the admin nor a subscriber of this alert | | `ERR_ALERT_ALREADY_JOINED` | 409 | unique-constraint race on `(alertId, user, deviceId)`; the normal re-scan path is idempotent and returns `200` | | `ERR_ALERT_STATE` | 409 | the action is illegal in the alert's current state (e.g. disarming a non-triggered alert, deleting a live one) | | `ERR_ALARM_TRIGGERED_OFFLINE` | 409 | **not an error**: `alarmStatus` is telling this device it missed a trigger while offline and must ring now (the body carries the frame) | | `ERR_INTERNAL` | 500 | unexpected server/database failure | `ERR_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED` (405) and `ERR_UNAVAILABLE` (503) also exist on the WebSocket endpoint — see below. These codes only ever appear in a JSON envelope; the dispatch-level `405` described above is plain text and carries no code. **Every error response carries a human-readable message; there is no bare-status form on the wire.** A JSON error always has a non-empty `code` **and** `message` (the emitter substitutes the code's canonical message if a handler ever supplies an empty one, so this holds by construction rather than by convention), and a plain-text dispatch error always has a non-empty body. No documented case exists where an error message is legitimately empty — if one is ever needed, it must be added here first. ## Action summary The dispatcher routes by HTTP method (`GET`, `POST`, `PUT`, `DELETE`); in every case the action name is the path segment after `/action/`. `POST` accepts every **alert** action plus the shared-auth proxies. `GET` accepts the read-only alert subset plus `me` and `logout` — **`me` is GET-only** (`POST /action/me` is a `501`). `DELETE` accepts the two removals. `PUT` implements nothing at all. ### Alert actions | Action | Verbs | Admin token | Access | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `createAlert` | POST | — | any authenticated user becomes the admin | | `getAlert` | GET, POST | — | admin **or** subscriber | | `joinAlert` | POST | — | any authenticated user holding the subscribe token | | `listSubscriptions` | GET, POST | — | alert admin only: the access-token user must be the alert's `adminUserId`; **no** admin token is used | | `removeSubscription` | DELETE, POST | — | admin (any row) or the subscriber (own row) | | `triggerAlert` | POST | required | admin | | `disarmAlert` | POST | required | admin | | `ackAlarm` | POST | — | admin **or** subscriber; subscribers must send `deviceId` | | `alarmStatus` | GET, POST | — | admin **or** subscriber; read-only (reports debt, clears nothing) | | `deleteAlert` | DELETE, POST | required | admin | | `qrImage` | GET, POST | — | admin **or** subscriber | ### Shared-auth actions (`/auth/*` proxies) Thin proxies to `dcntrlized-auth`, kept on `/action/` for the RN clients that send everything through one path. They take the same `{payload}` envelope; the payload is forwarded as the raw auth body and the auth response is relayed as-is, unwrapped (so these return the auth service's own body shape, not the alert shapes documented here). | Action | Verbs | Proxies | Payload | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | `me` | GET | `GET /auth/me` | — (access token header only) | | `logout` | GET, POST | `POST /auth/logout` | POST: `{ "refreshToken": "…" }`; GET: bodyless no-op | | `login` | POST | `POST /auth/login` | `{ "email": "…", "password": "…" }` (the hub identifies accounts by email) | | `register` | POST | `POST /auth/register` | `{ "username": "…", "password": "…", "email": "…" }` | | `refresh` | POST | `POST /auth/refresh` | `{ "refreshToken": "…" }` | | `delete` | POST | `POST /auth/delete` | `{ "password": "…" }` | Direct `/auth/*` routes exist for the same calls; the RN clients call those for login/register (raw body, no envelope). These `/action/` variants are the envelope-wrapped form of the same operations. ### Anonymous subscribers (rev 10) Receiving alarms needs no account. There is **no subscriber account, synthetic or otherwise**: the subscription row is the identity, and the service mints a device token for it at join time. 1. `joinAlert` is called with **no `X-Access-Token`** — the shared subscribe token from the QR is the only proof required. The response carries `deviceToken`, returned **once**, on the join that created or rotated it. 2. Every later subscriber call sends that token as `X-Device-Token` (`?deviceToken=` for the WebSocket upgrade, which cannot set headers): `getAlert`, `alarmStatus`, `ackAlarm`, `removeSubscription`, `qrImage` and `GET /ws/alarm`. 3. The token is scoped to exactly one alert and one subscription. It can read that alert, ring/dismiss its own alarm and drop its own row — nothing else. `createAlert`, `triggerAlert`, `disarmAlert`, `deleteAlert` and `listSubscriptions` require an access token (`401 ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`); owning an alert always needs an account. 4. Re-joining from the same device **rotates** the token: the old one stops working immediately, which is how a lost token is recovered with the subscribe token alone. A device is one subscription per alert. 5. `ALARM_ANONYMOUS=false` (env, default on) turns the unauthenticated path off: `joinAlert` then requires an access token and stores the subscription against that user, exactly like rev 9. The token is 32 CSPRNG bytes (base64url), stored as plain SHA-256 (there is nothing to stretch); the database never holds the token itself. No `auth.users` row is created, so nothing outside `alarm.subscriptions` changes when a device subscribes. --- ## `createAlert` Creates an alert and makes the caller its admin. **POST** `/action/createAlert` ```json { "payload": { "name": "Fire drill", "message": "Leave the building now" } } ``` | Field | Type | Rules | | --- | --- | --- | | `name` | string | required, 1–255 characters after trimming | | `message` | string | optional, ≤ 2000 bytes, the default text pushed with a trigger | Response `200`: ```json { "alertId": "0f8fad5b-d9cb-469f-a165-70867728950e", "name": "Fire drill", "message": "Leave the building now", "status": "armed", "active": false, "adminToken": "…", // shown ONCE, store it "subscribeToken": "…", "qrPayload": "https://alarm.dcntrlized.org/a/0f8f…e#…", "created": "2026-10-18T17:00:00Z" } ``` `adminToken` is returned **only here** (and nowhere else, ever). The server keeps a hash. Losing it means losing admin rights over that alert. There is **no auto-stop and no ringing duration**: an alert created here rings from the moment it is triggered until its owner disarms it (see `triggerAlert`). An old client that still sends `autoStopSeconds` is accepted — unknown payload fields are ignored — but the value has no effect. There *is* an owner-set **persistence** window, and it is a different clock: [`expiresInSeconds`](#validation-and-the-persistence-cap) sets how long the alert itself lives (default 24 h, minimum 60 s, hard maximum 14 days = 1 209 600 s). Above the cap is `ERR_VALIDATION`, not a silent clamp. The response carries `expiresAt` (RFC 3339), as does every `alertView`. After that instant the alert is destroyed with everything about it, and clients see `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND` — stragglers are ignored by design. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `getAlert` Returns the alert, the caller's relationship to it, and the newest event. **GET** `/action/getAlert?alertId=` · **POST** `{ "payload": { "alertId": "…" } }` Response `200`: ```json { "alertId": "…", "name": "Fire drill", "message": "Leave the building now", "status": "triggered", // "armed" | "triggered" | "disarmed" "active": true, // derived, see alarmStatus "created": "2026-10-18T17:00:00Z", "modified": "2026-10-18T17:05:00Z", "triggeredAt": "2026-10-18T17:05:00Z", "qrPayload": "https://alarm.dcntrlized.org/a/…#…", "isAdmin": true, "subscriptionCount": 2, "lastEvent": { "eventId": "…", "action": "trigger", "message": "Leave the building now", "serverTime": "2026-10-18T17:05:00Z" } } ``` `qrPayload` is present for the admin and for subscribers (the subscriber already holds that token). `isAdmin` tells the client which controls to render. Optional fields are **omitted, never sent as `null`** (`omitempty` on the wire). That covers `triggeredAt` (absent until the first trigger — and *kept* after a disarm, so it always means "when it last rang"), `disarmedAt` (absent until a disarm) and `lastEvent` (absent while the alert has no events). Test for presence, not for `null`. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_SUBSCRIBED`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `joinAlert` Subscribes the caller's device. This is what the QR scan calls. **POST** `/action/joinAlert` — **no access token required** (rev 10). The shared subscribe token is the authorisation; the response includes a `deviceToken` (returned once) that authenticates this device on its later subscriber calls. With `ALARM_ANONYMOUS=false` the call requires `X-Access-Token` and no device token is issued. ```json { "payload": { "alertId": "0f8fad5b-…", "subscribeToken": "…", "deviceId": "android-8f2c…", "deviceLabel": "Pixel 7", "platform": "android" } } ``` | Field | Type | Rules | | --- | --- | --- | | `alertId` | uuid | required (the scanner takes it from the QR payload) | | `subscribeToken` | string | required, 16–64 url-safe characters, must match the alert | | `deviceId` | string | **required**, 1–128 characters after trimming, no control characters — the client generates and persists a stable per-install id and sends it on every join | | `deviceLabel` | string | optional, ≤ 128 chars | | `platform` | string | optional, ≤ 32 chars (`android`, `ios`, …) | `deviceId` is part of the subscription's identity, so it is **not optional**: missing or empty is `400 ERR_VALIDATION` (`deviceId is required`). Generate it once per install (a random value persisted in app storage is enough) and never change it — a new value makes the same user a separate subscription, which is exactly the "second device" behaviour. Reuse the same value as `?deviceId=` on `/ws/alarm` so the right subscription's `last_seen_at` is refreshed. **The server never stores the raw value: it stores `sha256:<64 lowercase hex>`** (`crypto/sha256`, 71 bytes, inside `VARCHAR(128)`). Every comparison hashes the caller's input first — this join, the unique key, and the `?deviceId=` lookup on the socket — so behaviour is unchanged and the client neither learns nor needs the hash. It keeps sending the raw value. Response `200` — the subscription view (see `listSubscriptions`). **Idempotent per `(alertId, user, deviceId)`**: re-scanning the same QR on the same device returns `200` with the same subscription id and creates no new row. The same user scanning on a *second* device creates a second subscription. `ERR_ALERT_ALREADY_JOINED` is only the 409 fallback for a concurrent duplicate insert race. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_TOKEN_INVALID`, `ERR_ALERT_ALREADY_JOINED`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `listSubscriptions` **GET** `/action/listSubscriptions?alertId=` · **POST** `{ "payload": { "alertId": "…" } }` Admin only (the access token must belong to the alert's admin — the admin token is *not* required for this read). ```json { "items": [ { "id": "…", "userId": "…", "deviceLabel": "Pixel 7", "platform": "android", "enabled": true, "lastSeenAt": "2026-10-18T17:04:00Z", "created": "2026-10-18T16:00:00Z" } ] } ``` `username` is intentionally **never** populated: it lives in the auth service's schema and Alarm does not read another service's tables. The field is omitted rather than sent empty. `lastSeenAt` is refreshed whenever that subscription's socket connects or heartbeats. `deviceId` is intentionally **not** in this view. Note who "admin" means here: the **alert owner** — the user who created this particular alert and holds its admin token. It is *not* the Maestro instance operator; no instance-level operator ever reads this view. The value is a stable pseudonymous idempotency key (see `joinAlert`), not a credential, and the alert owner has no need to read every subscriber's device identifier. The subscription `id` is the revocation handle (`removeSubscription` takes it). To tell several identical-looking devices apart — labels are roles now, so three Android phones share one label — use `created` (the join time), `lastSeenAt`, `deviceLabel` and `platform`; none of those identifies a device. The digest is still stored server-side and is still part of the `(alertId, subscriber, device digest)` unique key that makes a re-join idempotent; only the read exposure is removed. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_ADMIN`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `removeSubscription` **DELETE** `/action/removeSubscription` · **POST** (same envelope) ```json { "payload": { "alertId": "…", "subscriptionId": "…" } } ``` The admin may remove any subscription of the alert; a subscriber may remove its own. Response `200`: ```json { "alertId": "…", "subscriptionId": "…", "removed": true } ``` Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_SUBSCRIBED`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_ADMIN`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `triggerAlert` Fires the alarm **live** on every subscriber of every instance. **POST** `/action/triggerAlert` ```json { "payload": { "alertId": "0f8fad5b-…", "adminToken": "…", "message": "Optional per-trigger override" } } ``` `message` is optional; when omitted the alert's stored message is used. The override is **not** persisted — it applies to this event only. Response `200`: ```json { "eventId": "…", "action": "trigger", "serverTime": "2026-10-18T17:05:00.123Z", "delivered": 2 } ``` - `delivered` is the number of **live WebSocket clients on this instance** that the frame was written to. It is not a delivery guarantee: clients that were not connected (or are on another instance) are reached by the reconnect catch-up and by the `alarmStatus` fallback instead. - Re-triggering an already-triggered alert is allowed and always produces a **new `eventId`**. Clients must treat each `eventId` as a new alarm. ### Two clocks, four endings Keep these apart; conflating them is how the next reader gets it wrong. **Clock 1 — ringing.** There is no auto-stop and no ringing timer. An alert is active from the moment it is triggered until it ends. A subscriber's *ringing* ends when that subscriber dismisses it locally; that is a client action which by itself changes no server state until the client sends `ackAlarm` (or the socket `ack`), and the server never depends on a client's cooperation to stop an event. **Clock 2 — alert lifetime.** `expires_at`, chosen by the owner at creation (cap 14 days), bounds how long the alert exists at all. It is not a ringing timer: it is the persistence cap that stops a device that never returns from pinning an alert forever. An alert ends in exactly three ways, each destroyed through the same path with its own `event_log` row (`event:"destroyed"`, `reason`): | Ending | Trigger | Analytics reason | Note | |---|---|---|---| | **delivered** | every enabled subscription has acked (`ackAlarm`/WS `ack`) | `delivered` | drain-to-empty; a trigger with **zero** subscribers never counts as drained | | **expired** | `now() >= expires_at` | `expired` | destroys even with unacked deliveries — stragglers are ignored | | **disarmed** | owner calls `disarmAlert` (triggered **or** still armed) | `disarmed` | on an armed alert this is "delete it without ever firing" | | **deleted** | owner calls `deleteAlert` explicitly | `deleted` | converges with disarm for an armed alert; kept as a separate intent | `disarmAlert` therefore ends an armed alert too — it is not a no-op and not a re-arm. Deleting or disarming an alert removes its delivery-ledger rows by cascade, so a device that still had an unacked delivery is **never** later told "you missed a trigger": replay and the 409 read only that ledger, and a destroyed alert has no debt left to report. On reconnect the client learns the alert is gone (`ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`) — that means **ended**, not **triggered**. Deliberate consequence, so it is not a surprise later: an owner who loses their phone (or admin token) cannot stop a ringing alert before it expires — but the persistence cap now guarantees the alert (and its debt) eventually disappears. That trade — an alarm nobody can miss versus one nobody can stop forever — is the accepted design. - The alert state is stored **before** the fan-out, so a client that reconnects immediately after the call still sees the live event. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_TOKEN_INVALID`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_ADMIN`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `disarmAlert` **POST** `/action/disarmAlert` — same payload as `triggerAlert` (the `message` override applies to the disarm event the same way). ```json { "payload": { "alertId": "…", "adminToken": "…", "message": "All clear" } } ``` Response `200` — same shape as `triggerAlert` with `"action": "disarm"`: ```json { "eventId": "…", "action": "disarm", "serverTime": "2026-10-18T17:09:00.456Z", "delivered": 2 } ``` Disarm **ends the alert**, whatever its state: - **triggered** — the live alarm ends; outstanding deliveries cascade away (closed, not acked) and the alert is destroyed with event-log reason `disarmed`; - **armed / never triggered** — the alert is destroyed as well. This is the user's "delete the whole alarm without triggering it": clients learn it ended, never that it fired. **Cancel the ring on `action: "disarm"`** (or on `active:false`). Disarming an already-destroyed alert is `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`; the action is idempotent in intent and cannot destroy twice or log twice. Errors: as `triggerAlert`, plus `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`. ## `alarmStatus` The cheap, indexed fallback a client polls when its socket is down, or on cold start when it may have been killed mid-alarm. **GET** `/action/alarmStatus?alertId=[&deviceId=]` · **POST** `{ "payload": { "alertId": "…" } }` (a `deviceId` in the payload is not read; send it in the query if you want to pin the subscription) ```json { "active": true, "eventId": "…", "action": "trigger", "message": "Leave the building now", "serverTime": "2026-10-18T17:05:00.123Z" } ``` `active` is **derived**, never a ringing timer: it is true only when the newest event is a `trigger` and the stored status is `triggered`. The answer stays correct across restarts and instances, and it stays `true` until the owner disarms or the alert expires. (There *is* a sweeper, but it destroys expired alerts — it never changes an event's meaning.) An expired or destroyed alert is `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND` here like everywhere else. When there is no event yet the fields are empty and `active` is `false`. `serverTime` is the event's timestamp (or the server's clock when there is no event) — use it to correct client clock skew rather than comparing with the device clock. ### Offline check-in — `409 ERR_ALARM_TRIGGERED_OFFLINE` The same call is the offline check-in. A trigger writes a **durable delivery ledger row** for every enabled subscription (`alarm.alarm_deliveries`), so a device that was offline at trigger time has a record owing it an alarm even though `pg_notify` and the in-memory catch-up never reached it. When that device calls `alarmStatus`, it gets: ``` HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict ``` ```json { "error": { "code": "ERR_ALARM_TRIGGERED_OFFLINE", "message": "…" }, "alarm": { "type": "alarm", "alertId": "0f8fad5b-…", "eventId": "…", "action": "trigger", "message": "Leave the building now", "serverTime": "2026-10-18T17:05:00.123Z" } } ``` **This is a success-shaped alarm signal — the HTTP status is `409` but the response means "ring", never "the request failed".** `error` is the platform envelope verbatim (do not expect frame fields inside it, and there is no third top-level key): the frame lives in the sibling `alarm` object, shaped exactly like the WebSocket frame, so one parser serves both paths. A client that renders this as an error has failed to deliver the alarm. Handle `alarm` exactly like a live `trigger` frame: max volume, wake the screen, `ack`, and stop on a disarm. The socket is the primary path now: the same ledger is replayed on WebSocket connect (see "Reconnect catch-up"), which reaches the native service even when the JS layer is not running. The 409 is the secondary path for a client that is running and polling but has no socket — both settle the same rows. - The rows are marked acknowledged by the act of returning this response, so the same uninterrupted alarm cannot produce a second `409`. - On the live path the WebSocket `ack` frame marks them too, so an online client that actually received the frame is never told again. - Everything is idempotent: an ack for an event the device never owed, or a repeated ack, updates nothing and is not an error. - A trigger that was already disarmed before the device checked back in is not news: the ledger entries are cleared and the normal body (`active: false`) is returned instead of a stale ring. - `?deviceId=` selects the subscription (raw value, as sent to `joinAlert`); without it the caller's oldest subscription on the alert is used, mirroring the socket. The service hashes it before comparing. - If several triggers were missed, all pending entries are retired at once and the newest missed event is the one returned — a device is not made to ring once per missed event. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_SUBSCRIBED`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `ackAlarm` **POST** `/action/ackAlarm` — the explicit dismissal of a ringing alarm. The device rides the payload (or the query string), exactly like `joinAlert`: ```json { "payload": { "alertId": "…", "eventId": "…", "deviceId": "pixel-7" } } ``` Response `200`: ```json { "alertId": "…", "eventId": "…", "acked": 1, "destroyed": false } ``` - Clearing is **ack-driven**, never response-driven: `alarmStatus` only *reports* debt (409 + frame) and clears nothing, so a 409 lost in transit does not forfeit the alarm — the next check-in finds the same row. - Idempotent: a repeat ack (or an ack for an event the device never owed) returns `acked: 0`, never an error. The WebSocket `ack` frame settles the same rows. - `acked` counts the ledger rows cleared for this device. When the ack clears the last unacked row of the alert, the alert drains and is destroyed (reason `delivered`) — `destroyed: true` reports that intended outcome. - The alert owner has no delivery row, so an owner ack is a well-formed no-op. - Subscribers must pass `deviceId` (raw; the server hashes it). A device can only clear its own row. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_SUBSCRIBED`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `deleteAlert` **DELETE** `/action/deleteAlert` · **POST** (same envelope) ```json { "payload": { "alertId": "…", "adminToken": "…" } } ``` Deletes the alert, its subscriptions, its event history and its delivery-ledger rows (all `ON DELETE CASCADE` in the schema). Response `200`: ```json { "alertId": "…", "deleted": true } ``` Refused with `409 ERR_ALERT_STATE` while the alert is active — disarm first, so a ringing alarm cannot be deleted out from under its subscribers. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_TOKEN_INVALID`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_ADMIN`, `ERR_ALERT_STATE`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`. ## `qrImage` Renders the alert's subscribe QR as a PNG. **GET** `/action/qrImage?alertId=&scale=8&quietZone=4` · **POST** `{ "payload": { "alertId": "…" } }` | Query | Default | Range | | --- | --- | --- | | `scale` | `8` | 1–64 pixels per module | | `quietZone` (alias `margin`) | `4` | 4–32 modules | A quiet zone below **4 modules** is rejected with `400 ERR_VALIDATION`: the ISO/IEC 18004 minimum is 4 and smaller margins produce symbols real scanners refuse (measured: `zbarimg` returns "no symbol" at 0–3). Response `200` is **binary**, not JSON: `Content-Type: image/png`, `Cache-Control: no-store`, `X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff`. The image encodes exactly `qrPayload` (below). The QR is byte-mode, EC level **M**, version chosen automatically from the payload length. Keep the quiet zone at ≥ 4 modules; scanners reject codes without it. Errors: `ERR_VALIDATION`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, `ERR_ALERT_NOT_SUBSCRIBED`, `ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`, `ERR_INTERNAL` (encoder failure — never expected). ## QR payload format The QR encodes exactly the `qrPayload` field: ``` https://alarm.dcntrlized.org/a/# ``` An app-scheme deep link carries the same pair for in-app scanners: ``` dcntrlized-alarm://join?alert=&token= ``` `alertId` is a UUID and `subscribeToken` is 16–64 url-safe characters (`A–Z a–z 0–9 - _`). The fragment is used because a URL fragment is never sent to a server by a browser — the token stays client-side until the app posts it to `joinAlert`. --- ## Live protocol — `GET /ws/alarm` The service path is: ``` /ws/alarm?alertId=&token=&accessToken=[&deviceId=] /ws/alarm?alertId=&token=&deviceToken= ``` Through an instance (the supported path) that is `wss:///api/alarm/ws/alarm?…`; on the dev host the raw service port is `ws://localhost:8088/ws/alarm?…`. The data plane relays control frames end to end, so the 20s ping / 60s pong accounting below is measured between client and service, not against the proxy. The socket is **authenticated, not anonymous**: one of two credentials identifies the subscriber — an access token (an account) or a device token (rev 10, a device that joined without an account; sent as `?deviceToken=` because the upgrade cannot set headers) — and `token` proves the relationship to the alert in both cases. ### Authentication | Credential | Where | Required | | --- | --- | --- | | access token (who you are) | `X-Access-Token` header **or** `?accessToken=` / `?access_token=` | yes | | `alertId` | query | yes, valid uuid | | `token` | query | yes — the admin token **or** the subscribe token | | `deviceId` | query | optional; the `deviceId` used at `joinAlert` — selects which subscription's `last_seen_at` is refreshed (without it the oldest subscription is used) | - admin token match **and** the caller is the alert's admin → accepted as the admin connection (no subscription required); - subscribe token match **and** the caller has a subscription on that alert → accepted as a subscriber connection (`?deviceId=` selects the subscription, otherwise the oldest one is used); - anything else is rejected **before the upgrade** with the usual JSON error (`401 ERR_UNAUTHORIZED`, `403 ERR_ALERT_TOKEN_INVALID`, `403 ERR_ALERT_NOT_ADMIN`, `404 ERR_ALERT_NOT_SUBSCRIBED`, `404 ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND`, or `503 ERR_UNAVAILABLE` during shutdown). A non-`GET` request gets `405 ERR_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED`. A header is preferred for the access token (headers do not appear in access logs); the query form exists because browsers cannot set headers on a WebSocket handshake. ### Server → client frames `alarm` — the alarm event. Every subscribed client receives the **same frame** from one fan-out: ```json { "type": "alarm", "alertId": "0f8fad5b-…", "eventId": "…", "action": "trigger", // "trigger" | "disarm" "message": "Leave the building now", "serverTime": "2026-10-18T17:05:00.123Z" } ``` There is **no** server → client `ack` frame: `ack` is client → server only (it counts the acknowledgement and clears the durable delivery-ledger row). A client must not wait for one. ### Client → server frames `ack` — "I have this event and I am ringing": ```json { "type": "ack", "eventId": "…" } ``` `ping` — application-level keepalive. The server answers with a WebSocket **pong control frame** (there is no JSON pong) and refreshes the subscription's `last_seen_at`. ```json { "type": "ping" } ``` Unknown or malformed client frames are ignored, never fatal. **The one fatal exception is frame size.** A client frame larger than **4096 bytes** is a protocol violation: the server refuses it and closes the connection with the WebSocket close code `1009` (message too big). `ack` and `ping` are tiny, so this only bites a client that tries to send something else through the socket — don't. If you see an unexplained disconnect, this is a candidate; the same applies to sending non-JSON frames. ### Keepalive and timeouts - The server sends a WebSocket ping every **20s**; a client that sends nothing (no pong, no `ping`) for **60s** is dropped. - Every write has a **10s** deadline, so a dead peer can never block the hub. - Each connection has a buffered send queue. A client that cannot keep up is **dropped** (its socket closed) rather than allowed to slow the fan-out down for everyone else. Reconnect and the catch-up frame restores the state. ### Reconnect catch-up Two replays happen on a successful upgrade, both before anything else is sent: 1. **Durable ledger replay (the authoritative one).** Every trigger writes a delivery-ledger row per enabled subscription. When a socket connects, the service sends **every trigger frame this exact `(alert, subscription)` still owes**, oldest first — up to a bounded handful. This is what makes delivery survive being offline even when the client's JS layer is dead: the Android foreground service holds the socket, receives the frame, and schedules the alarm clock without any app-level check-in. Nothing is marked by the replay itself: the debt clears only when the client `ack`s (or the `alarmStatus` check-in settles it), so a frame the client never processed stays owed and is sent again on the next connect. 2. **In-memory last-event catch-up (the fast path).** The service also keeps the last event per alert in memory and replays it if it is still live (a `trigger` not superseded by a disarm). This is belt-and-braces: it covers the window before/while the ledger row is visible, and it is what the duplicate suppression below is about — if the ledger replay already sent that exact `eventId`, the catch-up is skipped. A trigger that was already **disarmed** before the device reconnects is not replayed — ringing a stale alarm would be worse than silence; the check-in clears that debt instead. Honest limits: the in-memory catch-up is per-instance, so on an instance that never saw the trigger it does nothing; the ledger is what crosses instances and restarts. And replay and a live `NOTIFY` can race, so a client may legitimately see the same `eventId` twice — acks are keyed by `eventId` and ledger clearing is idempotent, so it is a duplicate, not a fault. ### Deployment constraint — `DEV_MODE_STATIC_SERVICES` The Maestro data plane (`/api//…`) resolves the target through `serviceproxy.Resolve`, which always goes through the Docker client. Under Maestro's `DEV_MODE_STATIC_SERVICES` there are no containers to resolve, so the data plane cannot work in that mode; a real instance always has Docker. This is a platform constraint, not an Alarm limitation — direct service addressing is not a supported deployment. ### Multiple instances Fan-out is local: `Broadcast` writes to this instance's connections. Every trigger/disarm is also an `INSERT` into `alarm.alarm_events`, whose trigger issues `pg_notify('alarm_events', …)`; each instance holds a `LISTEN` and re-broadcasts to its own clients. So a trigger raised on instance A fires on subscribers of instance B as well. Duplicate deliveries are suppressed by `eventId`, so the local fast path and the NOTIFY path cannot double-fire. ### Minimal client ```js // Through an instance: wss:///api/alarm/ws/alarm?… const ws = new WebSocket( `wss://${instance}/api/alarm/ws/alarm?alertId=${alertId}` + `&token=${subscribeToken}&accessToken=${accessToken}&deviceId=${deviceId}`); ws.onmessage = (ev) => { const f = JSON.parse(ev.data); if (f.type === "alarm" && f.action === "trigger") { // No auto-stop: ring until a disarm frame (or a local dismissal) arrives. ring(f.message, f.eventId); // max volume, wake screen ws.send(JSON.stringify({ type: "ack", eventId: f.eventId })); } if (f.type === "alarm" && f.action === "disarm") stopRinging(f.eventId); }; setInterval(() => ws.readyState === 1 && ws.send('{"type":"ping"}'), 25000); ``` ### Polling fallback When the socket cannot be established, poll `alarmStatus` (every 5–15s while the app is foregrounded) and treat `active: true` with a new `eventId` exactly like a live `trigger` frame, and `active: false` (or `action: "disarm"`) as the stop signal. Always prefer the socket: it is the < 1s path, and polling only bounds the worst case. Polling rides the same instance path as everything else: `GET {base}/api/alarm/action/alarmStatus?alertId=…` with the same access token — the data plane forwards the query string verbatim, so the exact same URL the socket uses for its identity works here. There is no separate "mode": the socket and the poll are two transports over one address. The honest failure story is therefore **"the socket is not listening"**, not "the wrong mode": the phone cannot reach the instance at all (no network, wrong instance URL, service stopped — the relay answers `409 ERR_NOT_RUNNING` while the instance itself is up), or the socket keeps dropping. Polling bounds the worst case in every one of those; it never turns a reachable instance into an unreachable one. --- ## `GET /_manifest` ```json { "name": "Alarm", "author": "Dcntrlized", "capabilities": ["database", "alarm.live"], "has_auth": true, "public_key": "", "icon": "" } ``` Served verbatim, `Content-Type: application/json`. `database` declares the schema/migration capability Maestro provisions; `has_auth` tells Maestro to mount the shared-auth proxy. --- ## Worked example ```bash # Through an instance (the supported path) the base is https:///api/alarm. # On the dev host you can talk to the service directly for debugging: BASE=http://localhost:8088 # 1. access token (shared auth) TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST "$BASE/auth/login" \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"username":"admin","password":"admin_password_123"}' | jq -r .accessToken) # 2. create the alert (keep adminToken!) curl -s -X POST "$BASE/action/createAlert" -H "X-Access-Token: $TOKEN" \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"payload":{"name":"Fire drill","message":"Leave the building"}}' | jq # 3. a second user scans the QR payload and joins curl -s -X POST "$BASE/action/joinAlert" -H "X-Access-Token: $BOB" \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"payload":{"alertId":"'$ALERT'","subscribeToken":"'$SUB'","deviceId":"pixel-7"}}' | jq # 4. bob opens the socket (leave it running in another terminal) websocat "ws://localhost:8088/ws/alarm?alertId=$ALERT&token=$SUB&accessToken=$BOB&deviceId=pixel-7" # 5. trigger — bob's socket prints the alarm frame curl -s -X POST "$BASE/action/triggerAlert" -H "X-Access-Token: $TOKEN" \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"payload":{"alertId":"'$ALERT'","adminToken":"'$ADMIN'"}}' | jq # 6. disarm curl -s -X POST "$BASE/action/disarmAlert" -H "X-Access-Token: $TOKEN" \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -d '{"payload":{"alertId":"'$ALERT'","adminToken":"'$ADMIN'"}}' | jq # 7. what a device that was offline during the trigger sees when it checks in. # First call: 409 ERR_ALARM_TRIGGERED_OFFLINE + the alarm frame. Second call: # a normal 200 with active:false — the ledger row was cleared by the first. curl -si -H "X-Access-Token: $BOB" \ "$BASE/action/alarmStatus?alertId=$ALERT&deviceId=pixel-7" | head -20 ``` ## Storage All state lives in the shared PostgreSQL database, schema `alarm`: | Table | Contents | | --- | --- | | `alarm.alerts` | one row per alert: name, message, admin user id, admin-token hash, subscribe token, status, timestamps, `expires_at` (owner-set persistence cap, hard maximum 14 days). No auto-stop/ringing-duration column exists. | | `alarm.subscriptions` | `(alert, user, sha256(device id))` unique, label/platform, `enabled`, `last_seen_at`. `device_id` stores `sha256:<64 lowercase hex>`, never the raw client value. | | `alarm.alarm_events` | append-only trigger/disarm history; its `AFTER INSERT` trigger issues the `pg_notify` that fans out to other instances | | `alarm.alarm_deliveries` | the durable per-device delivery ledger: `(alert, subscription, event)` primary key, `created_at`, nullable `acked_at`. Written in the trigger transaction, one row per enabled subscription; cascades with its alert and subscription. It is what makes an offline device's missed alarm recoverable and what makes "no auto-stop" safe. | Migrations live in `database/migrations/` and are applied by the compose `migrate` one-shot; they are idempotent and safe to re-apply. ### What the device-id hash does and does not buy `sha256:` makes a database dump useless as a list of device identifiers and it means the raw value never sits at rest. It is **not** a credential (it never authenticates anything — identity comes from the access token) and it is **not** an unlinkability guarantee: the same raw id on the same alert always maps to the same digest, and that correlation is the whole point, because it is what makes a re-join idempotent. If two people share one device, they are one device for this purpose by design. ## Validation and the persistence cap `createAlert` accepts an optional `expiresInSeconds` (integer, seconds): | Bound | Value | Why | | --- | --- | --- | | default (field omitted) | **24 h** (`86400`) | an alert is a transient safety mechanism; a day covers "created tonight, triggered tomorrow morning" without leaving debris for a week | | minimum | **60 s** | the sweeper ticks every ~60 s; anything shorter could expire before a device can join | | maximum | **14 days** (`1209600`) | the user's hard cap; values above are `ERR_VALIDATION`, never silently clamped, because a silent clamp changes what the owner asked for | `expiresAt` (RFC 3339) is returned by `createAlert` and by every `alertView`. An alert past its instant reads as `ERR_ALERT_NOT_FOUND` on every action — including `alarmStatus` — even before the sweeper reaches it, so a client cannot observe a zombie. ## The event log Exactly one durable, anonymised lifecycle table: **`alarm.event_log`**. | Column | Type | Meaning | | --- | --- | --- | | `id` | `BIGSERIAL` | primary key | | `occurred_at` | `TIMESTAMPTZ NOT NULL DEFAULT now()` | when | | `event` | `TEXT NOT NULL` | `created`, `joined`, `triggered`, `delivered`, `destroyed` | | `alert_hash` | `TEXT NOT NULL` | SHA-256 hex of the alert UUID | | `user_hash` | `TEXT` | SHA-256 hex of the actor/subscriber UUID | | `reason` | `TEXT` | `destroyed` rows only: `delivered`, `expired`, `disarmed`, `deleted` | It records **important lifecycle events only**. It is **not** a mirror of stdout: the per-request access log stays on stdout. It has deliberately **no** column for an IP, a user agent, a token, a request body, a query string or a request identifier of any kind, and adding one later would be a privacy regression. Anonymisation, two schemes on purpose: - `alert_hash` / `user_hash`: **plain SHA-256** over the canonical UUID string. A UUID carries ~122 random bits, so a plain digest is genuinely one-way. - The stdout request line hashes the client IP and user agent with the same plain SHA-256. Honest limitation: an IPv4 address is a 2^32 space, so a plain digest is enumerable — that is anonymisation of *records* (a log dump does not directly name a client), **not** cryptographic protection. Do not add a pepper, a salt or a work factor; the user rejected that as overengineering, and the network identifier never reaches durable storage anyway. No foreign keys: rows survive the alert they describe by construction. ### Retention - `event_log`: **age-based only — 7 days**, swept by the same ~60 s goroutine as expiry (`DELETE … WHERE occurred_at < now() - interval '7 days'`). This is the fastest-growing table in the schema; it must never grow without bound. - Alerts: destroyed at `expires_at` (or by drain/disarm/delete), never by age alone without the owner having chosen `expiresInSeconds`. - Delivery ledger rows: removed only with their alert/subscription cascade.