We are pleased to announce the release of #Fedify 1.7.0. This release was expedited at the request of the Ghost team, who are actively using Fedify for their #ActivityPub implementation. As a result, several features originally planned for this version have been moved to Fedify 1.8.0 to ensure timely delivery of the most critical improvements.

This release focuses on enhancing message queue functionality and improving compatibility with ActivityPub servers through refined HTTP signature handling.

Native retry mechanism support

This release introduces support for native retry mechanisms in message queue backends. The new MessageQueue.nativeRetrial property allows queue implementations to indicate whether they provide built-in retry functionality, enabling Fedify to optimize its retry behavior accordingly.

When nativeRetrial is set to true, Fedify will delegate retry handling to the queue backend rather than implementing its own retry logic. This approach reduces overhead and leverages the proven retry mechanisms of established queue systems.

Current implementations with native retry support include:

• DenoKvMessageQueue — utilizes Deno KV's automatic retry with exponential backoff
• WorkersMessageQueue — leverages Cloudflare Queues' automatic retry and dead-letter queue features
• AmqpMessageQueue — can now be configured to use AMQP broker's native retry mechanisms

The InProcessMessageQueue continues to use Fedify's internal retry mechanism, while ParallelMessageQueue inherits the retry behavior from its wrapped queue.

AMQP message queue improvements

Alongside Fedify 1.7.0, we have also released @fedify/amqp 0.3.0. This release adds the nativeRetrial option to AmqpMessageQueueOptions, enabling you to leverage your AMQP broker's built-in retry mechanisms. When enabled, this option allows the AMQP broker to handle message retries according to its configured policies, rather than relying on Fedify's internal retry logic.

Configurable double-knocking

The new FederationOptions.firstKnock option provides control over the HTTP Signatures specification used for the initial signature attempt when communicating with previously unknown servers.

Previously, the first knock for newly encountered servers always used RFC 9421 (HTTP Message Signatures), falling back to draft-cavage-http-signatures-12 if needed. With this release, you can now configure which specification to use for the first knock when communicating with unknown servers, with RFC 9421 remaining the default.

Summary

This release maintains Fedify's commitment to reliability and compatibility while laying the groundwork for more efficient message processing. The native retry mechanism support will particularly benefit applications using queue backends with sophisticated retry capabilities, while the double-knocking mechanism addresses real-world compatibility challenges in the ActivityPub ecosystem.

For detailed technical information about these changes, please refer to the changelog in the repository.

#fedidev #fediverse

Excited to share that I've joined #OSSCA (Open Source Software Contribution Academy) as a mentor for the @fedify project!

OSSCA is a national program run by South Korea's NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion Agency) through their Open Source Software Support Center, aimed at fostering the next generation of open source contributors.

We're currently in the process of selecting around 20 mentees who will start contributing to #Fedify once the selection is complete. I've been busy preparing good first issues to help them get started on their open source journey.

Looking forward to working with these new contributors and seeing what amazing things we can build together!

#opensource #mentoring #ActivityPub #fedidev

We're pleased to share that Encyclia has joined our success stories.

@encyclia bridges academic research to the #fediverse by making #ORCID researcher profiles and publications discoverable through #ActivityPub—built with #Fedify for seamless interoperability across Mastodon and other fediverse platforms.

This demonstrates Fedify's versatility beyond traditional social networking, helping specialized domains connect to the federated web.

We're also grateful for #Encyclia's sponsorship support, which helps make Fedify's development possible.

Learn more about Encyclia at https://encyclia.pub/. 📚

#fedidev #openscience

I've been thinking about adding a debug dashboard to #Fedify that shows all #ActivityPub activities being sent and received in real-time. This would include filters by activity type, detailed inspection of JSON-LD content, signature verification details, and retry management for failed deliveries.

As a #fedidev, would you find this useful for troubleshooting federation issues? Any other features that would be helpful in such a debugging tool?

Just received word that @fedify wasn't selected for @nlnet's Open Call this round. While disappointing, I understand the competition was fierce with many worthy projects seeking limited funding.

The journey continues though— #Fedify development will move forward at its own pace. Thanks to everyone who's shown interest and support for this project so far. Building tools for the #fediverse remains important work, and I'm committed to seeing it through.

If you know of other funding opportunities that might be a good fit for open source #ActivityPub tools, I'm all ears.