App Directory Discussion group - Monday 16th May 2022

[kriswest]

Group overview

Discussion group to develop proposals for the improvement of the App Directory as part of the FDC3 standard. The group will examine the role/value/necessity of the AppD as part of the FDC3 specification and a compliance requirement for use of the FDC3 API, in addition to working on proposals to improve the description and functionality of the App Directory.

Relevant tags

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

A github discussion is also available for this group (may be used to arrange meetings, agenda ask questions etc.)

Meeting Date

Thursday 16 May 2022 - 9am EST / 2pm GMT

WebEx info

• Meeting Link: (https://finos.webex.com/finos/j.php?MTID=m2316d45da678d0203fd86f9342ff63ab)
• Meeting number: 2551 735 2618
• Password: VscvKptp756

More ways to join

• Join by video system:
  • Dial 25517352618@finos.webex.com
  • You can also dial 173.243.2.68 and enter your meeting number
• Join by phone
  • +1-415-655-0003 US Toll
  • +44-20319-88141 UK Toll
• Access code: 2551 735 2618

Meeting notices

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• A Discussion Group has no direct decision-making power regarding the FDC3 standard - rather it is intended that anything they propose or work on will result in proposals (via Github issues and PRs) for the Standards Working Group participants to consider and vote on for inclusion in the standard. As such, participation in a Discussion group is not required for contributing to any particular issue or FDC 2.0 as a whole.

Agenda

• Convene & roll call, review meeting notices (5mins)
• Review action items from previous meeting (5mins)
  • App Directory Discussion group - Tuesday 3rd May 2022 #688
  • n.b. Support any App Definition so long has it has an 'fdc3' property #550 was closed
• Review and approve PRs to be added to consolidated AppD update PR (30-45mins)
  • AppD consolidated update PR #668
    • Already included:
      • 555 556 558 re-write of the AppD overview page #570
      • 560 Defining a term for a single appD record #658
      • 553 Support v1 and v2 URLs in AppD spec #666
      • 567 AppD more info #669
      • 622 AppD lang and translations #670
      • 369 AppD app categories #673
      • 561 Appd better align with web application manifest #675
      • add an endpoint for retrieving all apps from an appD (a primary use case) #694
  • To be reviewed:
    • 562 AppD vendor agnostic native apps #671
    • 566 remove appd create application endpoint #695
    • 370 remove appD search application endpoint #696
    • 247 appd use of interop #697
• Discuss other outstanding issues if time permits (0-15mins)
  • Provide better documentation and examples for AppD auth support #559
  • Allow an AppD application record to reference other apps that are *required* for it to run #674
  • Add /intents and /contexts endpoints to the AppD API #719
  • The AppIntent interface incorrectly describes an intent #312
  • Revive and update or replace AppD reference implementation #563
• AOB & Adjourn (5mins)

Minutes

• An overview of the consolidated PR so far was provided by @kriswest: AppD consolidated update PR #668
• A reminder of the timeline for FDC3 2.0 was requested:
  • PRs to be presented to SWG by next meeting (Thurs 26th May)
  • Vote on adoption of 2.0 draft at the subsequent meeting (Thurs 23rd June).
• 562 AppD vendor agnostic native apps #671
  • The proposed changes were discussed (including the surprising lack of a launch url field in the existing standard versions) and it was agreed that the approach (type, details and hostManifest fields) is reasonable.
    • A question was raised regarding whether the keys for the hostManifest field need to be standardized
      • @nkolba pointed out that you might need to vary these for different versions of desktop agents (e.g. because they support different FDC3 versions)
      • @kriswest It should probably be the responsibility of individual vendors to document what strings they look for, rather than the Standard. However, we can update the example provided (on request) to show it is for a particular product.
  • (silent) consensus was sought and received to merge the PR into the consolidated appD update PR
• 566 remove appd create application endpoint #695
  • It was commented by several participants that administration systems for appD's will vary and there is no real need to standardize how they do that nor require that the expose this endpoint
  • Removing the endpoint from the standard does not prevent an implementation from using it
    • Add a comment to the appD spec that makes it clear that implementations MAY extend the standard endpoints
  • (silent) consensus was sought and received to merge the PR into the consolidated appD update PR
• 370 remove appD search application endpoint #696
  • @kriswest review some of the discussion on the topic of improving the search endpoint that resulted in a PR to remove it
  • see Improve the AppD's search function and documentation #370
    • Current API makes it hard to implement a fairly standard keyword search or browse/filter by category
    • Combining results from different appD's would require a far more detailed specification of result weighting
      • The only way to do it well is to retrieve all the entries and implement the search and any necessary filtering client-side
    • There is one current use-case: to perform intent resolution for a Desktop Agent - however several participants commented that this was inefficient and is/would be better handled client-side
    • removing the endpoint from the standard does not prevent an implementation from using it (for example to support a built-in UI) - but does ensure that Desktop Agent implementations or UIs for browsing App Directories won't rely on it
  • (silent) consensus was sought and received to merge the PR into the consolidated appD update PR
• 247 appd use of interop #697
  • @nkolba expressed a preference for dropping the interopUse element and moving the contents up to the top-level as siblings of the existing intents element
  • @nkolba queried the purpose of the raisesContexts element, @kriswest clarified that it was to represent contexts that raiseIntentForContext is called with and that other ways to handled it were to standardize a 'magic string' to represent any context type, or to rename the element using the API call (i.e. change the elements toraiseIntent and raiseIntentForContext)
  • The discussion was curtailed by the end of the meeting, it was resolved to continue the discussion on the issue.
  • @kriswest to update PR with suggested changes

Action Items

• @kriswest 566 remove appd create application endpoint #695
  • Add a comment to the appD spec that makes it clear that implementations MAY extend the standard endpoints
• @kriswest Merge agreed PRs into consolidated update PR:
  • 562 AppD vendor agnostic native apps #671
  • 566 remove appd create application endpoint #695
  • 370 remove appD search application endpoint #696
• @kriswest 247 appd use of interop #697
  • Explore moving the new elements to the top level of the record and rename based on API call
• @kriswest Recreate consolidated PR so that it gets a preview deployment Preview appeared on existing PR...
• @kriswest Send notice of the consolidated PR to Standards Working Group so that it can be reviewed before the next SWG meeting (26th May)
• @kriswest Prepare next meeting agenda, to include outstanding items
  • 247 appd use of interop #731
  • Provide better documentation and examples for AppD auth support #559
  • Allow an AppD application record to reference other apps that are *required* for it to run #674
  • Add /intents and /contexts endpoints to the AppD API #719
  • The AppIntent interface incorrectly describes an intent #312
  • Revive and update or replace AppD reference implementation #563

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

[robmoffat]

Rob / FINOS

[kriswest]

Kris / Cosaic 🚀

[tpina]

Tiago Pina / Cosaic

[nkolba]

Nick Kolba

[sarahaislinnstone]

Sarah Stone / Cosaic

[Qiana-Citi]

Qiana / Citi

[chedzoir]

Malcolm Chedzoy / Citi

[nicopreto]

Nico Pretorius / Scott Logic

[dimiter-georgiev]

Dimiter / Symphony

[kriswest]

Minutes have been posted and a preview of the consolidated PR is now available at here

• Spec summary: https://deploy-preview-668--lambent-kulfi-cf51a7.netlify.app/docs/next/app-directory/spec
• OpenAPI spec: https://deploy-preview-668--lambent-kulfi-cf51a7.netlify.app/schemas/next/app-directory#tag/Application

Please provide any further feedback on the draft proposal and add your review at:

• AppD consolidated update PR #668

[robmoffat]

can I close this now?

[kriswest]

can I close this now?

Usually not closed until next meeting. I will however go and close the last meeting, thanks for reminding me!