This Week in Matrix 2025-04-25

🔗Dept of Status of Matrix 🌡️

Robin Riley (m.org) reports

We are delighted announce that LiveKit is the newest Silver Member of the Foundation! The LiveKit Project is an open source project that does everything Matrix needs for native group calls, and the company behind the project is donating their LiveKit Cloud services to help us provide that functionality to users on the Matrix.org homeserver. We're grateful for their support and look forward to announcing 2-3 more new Silver Members in the coming weeks 🚀

🔗Dept of Spec 📜

Andrew Morgan (anoa) {he/him} reports

Here's your weekly spec update! The heart of Matrix is the specification - and this is modified by Matrix Spec Change (MSC) proposals. Learn more about how the process works at https://spec.matrix.org/proposals.

🔗MSC Status

New MSCs:

• [WIP] MSC4284: Policy Servers

MSCs in Final Comment Period:

• No MSCs are in FCP.

Accepted MSCs:

• MSC3861: Next-generation auth for Matrix, based on OAuth 2.0/OIDC
• MSC2967: API scopes
• MSC2966: Usage of OAuth 2.0 Dynamic Client Registration in Matrix
• MSC2964: Usage of OAuth 2.0 authorization code grant and refresh token grant

Closed MSCs:

• MSC3391: API to delete account data

🔗Spec Updates

The update above is actually from the last 21 days to make up for the lack of spec updates recently (I've been travelling!).

In my opinion, the most interesting part to talk about above is MSC4284: Policy Servers. If you haven't already, read the matrix.org blog post on Introducing Policy Servers. In short, they're servers on the internet where you can send events to and have them be checked for spam/illegal imagery/etc. before allowing the event to be sent down to your users. You can think of them like a SpamChecker Synapse module, but homeserver implementation agnostic.

This is a pretty interesting idea, and one can host their own policy server to keep the network decentralised. If you're interested in weighing in on the topic, please do so on the MSC!

Note: the idea of a "policy server" is not new. This MSC attempts to bring the concept in to the Matrix ecosystem specifically for Trust & Safety purposes. But the APIs could be used to enforce any policy (security, enterprise use cases, etc.).

🔗Dept of Servers 🏢

🔗Continuwuity (website)

nex (she/it) [Continuwuity] reports

Hello everyone! I (and the rest of the team) am proud to announce that Continuwuity 0.5.0rc5 has been released!

Continuwuity is a new homeserver that forked from conduwuit, following conduwuit's archival. We've formed a team of past contributors and eager administrators with the goal of carrying on the legacy that conduwuit started, and are keen to make Continuwuity one of the most viable options for a Matrix homeserver, big or small. We've got a whole host of things we're going to tackle, all of which are listed on our issue tracker. If you were looking for a successor to conduwuit, we might just be it - Continuwuity is a completely drop-in replacement for conduwuit!

Our first release (this one) includes added some neat features like federation allow-listing, support for the Gomuks Web "advanced custom room ID" field, and a whole host of performance improvements. Some important bugs were fixed, such as appservices being unable to call /messages to retrieve history, and client-specified limits being ignored when checking space hierarchy.

If you've got questions, or otherwise want to contact us, feel free to join our #continuwuity:continuwuity.org! We've also got a number of other rooms for you to poke around in, #space:continuwuity.org. Oh yeah, our website is at https://continuwuity.org too, because I guess docs are cool. See you around!

🔗Synapse (website)

Synapse is a Matrix homeserver implementation developed by Element

Andrew Morgan (anoa) {he/him} announces

We don't have an immediate timeline for the final release of Synapse v1.129.0, as we're currently fixing some regressions surfaced during user testing of v1.129.0rc1. Said regressions caused the release of v1.129.0rc1 to not be able to complete.

Look out for more information (and likely a new RC announcement) next week 🙂

🔗Dept of Clients 📱

🔗Element X iOS (website)

A total rewrite of Element iOS using the Matrix Rust SDK underneath and targeting devices running iOS 16+.

Doug reports

• This week we pushed version 25.04.4 to TestFlight and (all being well) it should arrive in the App Store on Monday. It includes:
  • Support for all of the new emoji added to iOS 18.4 in the reaction picker 🪉🫟🪏
  • Support for hardware keyboards on the PIN entry screen.
  • Improvements to the authentication flow that make it more robust if MAS is slow to respond.
• The project has been upgraded to support Xcode 16.3

🔗Commet (website)

Commet is a client for mobile and desktop with a modern UI and fun features!

airyz says

Last week we released v0.3.1 (and a hotfix) of Commet, adding support for Pinned Messages, and Message Effects. We currently support all of Element's effects, such as /confetti, as well as FluffyChat's cute events!

We also added some smaller improvements to the video player, as well as settings to control previewing of media in public and private rooms.

For the full list of changes, check out the release on our Github

🔗Dept of SDKs and Frameworks 🧰

🔗Rory&::LibMatrix (website)

.NET 9 matrix bot/client library/SDK

Emma [it/its] reports

🔗Rory&::LibMatrix

(Plus a few MatrixUtils updates)

What's new/changed?

• Developers now have easy access to predefined filters that return no events (to an efficient matrix, someday?)
• Room invites now have helper code to get sender name and room name, allowing clients to display these easily
• Support for sending typing notifications and read receipts has been added! (Thanks Kuylar!)
• Synapse admin API support has been extended, now more moderation tooling is possible!
• Fixed a bug in the "named cache" system, which failed if no data existed
• The "DevTest bot" is now more representative of an example bot. This should aid adoption of LibMatrix as a bot SDK.
• Fixed a bug in loading credentials from disk, and crunched another one that caused bots not to shut down in a timely manner
• "Fixed"/added support for bot commands with spaces, complementing support for prefixes with spaces! Now 100% more compatible with "Please" and "Thank you"! :D
• Bot Utils' built in !ping command now emits maubot-compatible ping metadata (though pingstats wont read it...)
• Made custom json content more accessible

So, I promised MatrixUtils, did I not...? (btw: #mru:rory.gay / git)

• Improved accessibility by including aria tags! This has been a nightmare for vision impaired users before, so I hope this makes a difference!
• Sessions are now stored as key value pairs with bespoke IDs, no more leaking tokens via query params!
• Cleaned up synapse admin room query considerably
• Added a synapse admin tool to rejoin a room via a given homeserver, for use when state gets freaky.
• Increased log signal-to-noise ratio in pages with images.
• WIP: Rewrote how admin room deletion is handled

And, as always:

• The code is available at cgit.rory.gay (or Github - read only, may be outdated)!
  • All contributions are more than welcome, be it documentation, code, anything! Perhaps, example usecases, bots, ...?
• Discussion, suggestions and ideas are welcome in #libmatrix:rory.gay (Space: #mru-space:rory.gay)
• Got a cool project that you're working on and want to share, using LibMatrix? Be sure to let us know, we'd love to hear all about it!

🔗Dept of Bots 🤖

nex (she/it) [Continuwuity] says

🔗matrix-invite-logger

Spam invites are always unwanted. I hate getting invites to social gatherings, and I definitely hate spam invites to Matrix rooms even more. I also have a rather non-unique problem in that I operate a fleet of Matrix accounts, but only frequently use a couple. As a result, I often end up with some spare accounts stacking up unanswered DM invites, or find that my main account has been invited to over 20 spam rooms in a night.

I got the hamsters in my head spinning, and came up with a solution to my problem - an invite logger!. But not just any invite logger, an invite logger with teeth! This tiny little Go program is designed to sit in the background (on your server, a raspberry pi, background task on your PC, etc) and sync with all of your accounts, and inspect invites. When it receives an invite, it will log as much metadata as possible about the invited room and inviting user into a log channel, and notify you. Then, if configured to, it will scan the room, inviter, and inviter's homeserver against policy lists, and if one of the policies would forbid the invite, the bot will automatically reject the invite for you!

You may ask, "how is this different to synapse anti-spam"? Great question. I do not operate matrix.org, or envs.net, and my main servers are not Synapse. I do, however, have policy lists. matrix-invite-logger is privilege-less, meaning you can run it on any account on any server, and get almost the same level of protection as if you were protected by synapse-anti-spam, as the bot is also programmed to follow any policy lists you tell it to. Additionally, you can delegate policy checking to the even more powerful Meowlnir!

Check it out here: https://codeberg.org/nexy7574/matrix-invite-logger#matrix-invite-logger | Join my Matrix room if you have questions: #general:nexy7574.co.uk

🔗Dept of Events and Talks 🗣️

MatMaul reports

As part of their commitment to digital commons and open source, the Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM) is organizing a hackathon dedicated to designing collaborative and sovereign digital tools.

Matrix is definitively part of this digital toolbox, since it already has quite some broad deployments, being in France with Tchap or in other EU countries.

Here are some Matrix related subjects that looks like they could be tackled in the timeframe of the hackathon, but you are of course free to propose other ones.

• Bundled URL previews, can we stop leaking URLs to the server in clear text please :)
• Encrypted search in the X mobile apps, all the building blocks are here, time for some Legos together!
• Federated user directory, because we should be able to find our friends easily, even in a decentralized world.
• Peeking over federation, since it would unlock many useful features. A prototype exists, let's finish it!
• Integrate recent visoconference software like Element Call or Meet with existing visoconference hardware, hopefully a prototype for Cisco HW is also available ❤️

🗓 Dates: June 2–4, 2025 📍 Location: ENS (Campus Jourdan - 48 boulevard Jourdan, Paris 14th, France)

🔗Program

💻 2 days of intensive hacking (reserved for technical profiles) to create open-source solutions. 🎙 A 3rd day open to all, featuring conferences and strategic discussions.

🔗 Here is the hackathon website, registration needed for the 2 first days!

🔗Matrix in the News 📰

HarHarLinks reports

Here is a very brief explanation of interoperable, decentralised, and most importantly open protocol messengers, such as XMPP or Matrix, on German radio: https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/alternative-zu-whatsapp-und-co-was-freie-messengerdienste-koennen-100.html

First, they explain decentralisation on the basis of email. They mention the potential issue that in such an ecosystem not all efforts are going into making a single client app very nice to use, but is instead fragmented. Next, there is a question about the EU DMA which is supposed to force Meta to open its messengers to be interoperable, and whether that means we get interop ("decentralisation") now. It is explained that despite WhatsApp's protocol being technically very similar to Signal's, Signal is still not doing this as it would weaken Signal users's privacy. In the end, they recommend users to try out a decentralised messenger, as for society as a whole it would be the ideal solution to migrate towards such as system.

🔗Matrix Federation Stats

Aine [don't DM] announces

collected by MatrixRooms.info - an MRS instance by etke.cc

As of today, 11347 Matrix federateable servers have been discovered by matrixrooms.info, 3365 (29.7%) of them are publishing their rooms directory over federation. The published directories contain 19805 rooms.

Stats timeline is available on MatrixRooms.info/stats

How to add your server | How to remove your server

🔗Dept of Ping

Here we reveal, rank, and applaud the homeservers with the lowest ping, as measured by pingbot, a maubot that you can host on your own server.

🔗#ping:maunium.net

Join #ping:maunium.net to experience the fun live, and to find out how to add YOUR server to the game.

Rank	Hostname	Median MS
1	bi-vibes.com	202.5
2	codestorm.net	224
3	beeper.com	334
4	usbpc.xyz	344.5
5	calitabby.net	396.5
6	gregtech.eu	451
7	laincorp.tech	525.5
8	poweron.dk	579.5
9	yipping.zone	588
10	wolfspyre.io	610

🔗That's all I know

See you next week, and be sure to stop by #twim:matrix.org with your updates!

To learn more about how to prepare an entry for TWIM check out the TWIM guide.