Vervis/API.md

This document describes the Client-to-Server API of Vervis. If you're
developing a frontend application, or a forge search engine, or anything else
that wants to interact with Vervis instances, and wondering what language
Vervis speaks, this is the document for you.

I suppose in the future it should sit on a Docusaurus website or something like
that. For now it's here.

# Public Browsing

The `/browse` page lists the public actors and resource hosted on the server.
However there's currently no AP version of that page.

# Server Information

NodeInfo isn't implemented yet.

# Registration and Authorization

Creating an account on a Vervis instance allows to:

1. Create and manipulate resources (such as projects, repositories, teams)
2. View non-public information

## Register the application

### Register client

Send a POST request to the `/oauth/apps` endpoint:

```sh
curl -X POST \
    -F 'client_name=Anvil' \
    -F 'redirect_uris=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob' \
    -F 'scopes=read' \
    -F 'website=https://anvil.forgefed.org' \
    -F 'repository=https://codeberg.org/Anvil/Anvil' \
    https://vervis.example/oauth/apps
```

- `redirect_uris` currently supports specifying only one URI, and there are 2
  options:
    - The special value `urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob`, which means out-of-band:
      In this case, Vervis will respond with an HTML page containing a token
      that needs to be manually copied
    - An HTTPS URI: In this case, Vervis will redirect to the given URI
- The only supported scope is currently `read`, and despite the misleading
  name, it allows all API operations

The response, upon success, is a JSON object with 2 text fields:

- `client_id`
- `client_secret`

Keep these stored for future use.

### Obtain an Application Access Token

Send a POST request to the `/oauth/token` endpoint:

```sh
curl -X POST \
    -F 'client_id=your_client_id_here' \
    -F 'client_secret=your_client_secret_here' \
    -F 'redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob' \
    -F 'grant_type=client_credentials' \
    https://vervis.example/oauth/token
```

- `redirect_uri` must be the one defined when registering the application

The response is a JSON object with:

- `access_token`: Text, keep for later use
- `token_type`: Text, always "Bearer"
- `scope`: Text, always "read"
- `created_at`: Integer, time as POSIX seconds

### Verify the Application Access Token

You can verify the token works by sending a GET request to the
`/oauth/verify_credentials` endpoint:

```sh
curl \
    -H 'Authorization: Bearer our_access_token_here' \
    https://vervis.example/oauth/verify_credentials
```

## Register an Account

There's currently no API endpoint for creating a new account.

## Log in as Existing User

### Obtain authorization code

In a browser, send a GET request to the `/oauth/authorize` endpoint:

```
https://vervis.example/oauth/authorize
?client_id=CLIENT_ID
&scope=read
&redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob
&response_type=code
```

- If `redirect_uri` is the special one as in the example above, the response
  will be an HTML page containing the authorization code.
- Otherwise, Vervis will redirect to the `redirect_uri`, specifying the
  authorization code as a query parameter named "code":

`redirect_uri?code=qDFUEaYrRK5c-HNmTCJbAzazwLRInJ7VHFat0wcMgCU`

### Obtain a User Access Token

Now that we have the code, send a POST request to the `/oauth/token` endpoint
(which we previously used when registering the application):

```sh
curl -X POST \
    -F 'client_id=your_client_id_here' \
    -F 'client_secret=your_client_secret_here' \
    -F 'redirect_uri=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob' \
    -F 'grant_type=authorization_code' \
    -F 'code=user_authzcode_here' \
    -F 'scope=read' \
    https://vervis.example/oauth/token
```

The response is a JSON object with:

- `access_token`: Text, keep for later use
- `token_type`: Text, always "Bearer"
- `scope`: Text, always "read"
- `created_at`: Integer, time as POSIX seconds

### Verify the User Access Token & Obtain Actor Object

You can verify the token works by sending a GET request to the
`/oauth/verify_credentials` endpoint:

```sh
curl \
    -H 'Authorization: Bearer our_access_token_here' \
    https://vervis.example/oauth/verify_credentials
```

The response is a JSON object that has a `url` field, whose value is the HTTPS
URI of the user's `Person` ActivityPub JSON object.

### Perform Authorized Requests

You can now use the access token via the `Authorization` header, as in the curl
example above.

- For GET requests, it allows to obtain non-public data
- For POST requests, it allows to publish ActivityPub activities via the user
  outbox

# Getting ActivityPub objects

You can obtain an ActivityPub object by sending GET request to its `id` URI,
with `Content-Type` being
`application/ld+json; profile="https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams`. Unless
you've been given such a URI, the starting points for discovering objects are:

- Public browsing page (which doesn't yet have an AP representation)
- The user `Person` object, whose URI can be obtained from
  `/oauth/verify_credentials` as described above

# Publishing and Manipulating Objects

All object manipulation in Vervis is done using the ActivityPub C2S API, i.e.
by POSTing `Activity` objects to the user's `outbox`. A list of supported
activities will soon be added here and/or in the ForgeFed specification.