NB1: this currently mainly describes how Solid OS stores data on a Solid Pod.

NB2: See the client-client spec for chat which is more complete and more recent than this doc!

To create a ShortChat conversation, create a document, e.g., /chat.ttl, and add the following triples to it:

</chat.ttl#this> a          mee:LongChat .
</chat.ttl#this> dc:author  </profile/card#me> .
</chat.ttl#this> dc:created "2018-07-06T21:36:04Z"^^XML:dateTime .
</chat.ttl#this> dc:title   "Chat channel" .

To add a message in the chat conversation, for instance where you say "hi", generate a timestamp like 1555487418787 and add the following triples to /chat.ttl:

</chat.ttl#Msg1555487418787> dct:created  "2019-04-17T07:50:18Z"^^XML:dateTime .
</chat.ttl#Msg1555487418787> sioc:content "hi" .
</chat.ttl#Msg1555487418787> foaf:maker   </profile/card#me> .

Note that for historical reasons, for the chat conversation as a whole, we use dc:created and dc:author, whereas for the individual chat messages we use dct:created and foaf:maker.

LongChat is similar to ShortChat, except that it uses LDP containers to discover the triples that describe the chat conversation, instead of having all the triples in one chat.ttl doc. To create a chat conversation, pick a timestamp, e.g., 1555491215455, create an LDP container, for instance /long-chat/, and in there, create an index document, e.g., /long-chat/index.ttl. To the index document, add the following triples:

</long-chat/index.ttl#this>            a                    mee:LongChat .
</long-chat/index.ttl#this>            dc:author            </profile/card#me> .
</long-chat/index.ttl#this>            dc:created           "2018-07-06T21:36:04Z"^^XML:dateTime .
</long-chat/index.ttl#this>            dc:title             "Chat channel" .
</long-chat/index.ttl#this>            flow:participation   :id1555491215455 .
</long-chat/index.ttl#this>            ui:sharedPreferences :SharedPreferences .
</long-chat/index.ttl#id1555491215455> ic:dtstart           "2019-04-17T08:53:35Z"^^XML:dateTime .
</long-chat/index.ttl#id1555491215455> flow:participant     </profile/card#me> .
</long-chat/index.ttl#id1555491215455> ui:backgroundColor   "#c0d2fe" .

To add a message in the LongChat conversation, for instance where you say "hi", pick a filename, for instance, /long-chat/2019/04/17/chat.ttl, generate a timestamp like 1555487418787 and add the following triples to /long-chat/2019/04/17/chat.ttl:

</long-chat/2019/04/17/chat.ttl#Msg1555487418787> dct:created  "2019-04-17T07:50:18Z"^^XML:dateTime .
</long-chat/2019/04/17/chat.ttl#Msg1555487418787> sioc:content "hi" .
</long-chat/2019/04/17/chat.ttl#Msg1555487418787> foaf:maker   </profile/card#me> .
</long-chat/index.ttl#this>                       flow:message </long-chat/2019/04/17/chat.ttl#Msg1555487418787> .

Note that there is no need to make /long-chat/2019/04/17/chat.ttl discoverable from /long-chat/index.ttl, since it can be discovered by following the LDP Container member listings for /long-chat/, /long-chat/2019/, /long-chat/2019/04/, and /2019/04/17/.

Also note that here too, for the chat conversation as a whole, we use dc:created and dc:author, whereas for the individual chat messages we use dct:created and foaf:maker.

One-to-One chat on top of Solid is used by snap-solid. It differs from ShortChat and LongChat in that it stores messages on the pod of the sender, not on the pod of the chat initiator.

The TripleDoc-based code for this was put into a subfolder of snap-solid, called solid-models. The solid-models project was cancelled in favour of solid-logic, which contains the non-visual parts of Solid-UI.

The two participants (call them Alice and Bob) first have to become friends. For this, Alice adds a folder to her pod, which will become her inbox for Bob. She gives herself Read/Write/Control access to it (accessTo+default), gives Bob append access to it (accesTo only), and (importantly) doesn't give anyone else access to it (other than maybe read access). That way, she knows that if she sees a document in this container, and she doesn't remember putting it there herself, it must have come from Bob. If she doesn't trust herself ;) she could even give herself read-only access instead of Read/Write/Control, so the container can really only be written to by Bob.

She then sends a friend request to Bob's global ldp.inbox, linked from Bob's profile document. Example:

<#this> a <https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Follow> ;
    solid:p2pInbox <https://alice.com/bob/inbox/> ;
    solid:webId <https://alice.com/profile/card#me> ;
    solid:nick "Call me Al" .

Alice includes a link to her inbox for Bob in the friend request. Bob creates a one-to-one inbox for Alice on his pod and responds with a friend request to Alice's global inbox. So the message that requests a friendship is identical to the message that accepts it. Example:

<#this> a <https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Follow> ;
    solid:p2pInbox <https://bob.com/alice/inbox/> ;
    solid:webId <https://bob.com/profile/card#me> ;
    solid:nick "Call me Bobbie" .

Once both one-to-one inboxes exist and both counterparties know about them, they can send messages to each other. Each message is stored twice, once posted to the other person's one-to-one inbox, and once on the sender's own pod.

The contents of these messages could be anything, for instance a human-readable text, using the sioc:content predicate:

<#this> sioc:content "Hi, Bob!" .

For now, the only known use of one-to-one chat is for SNAP messages, example:

<#this>
  snap:transId 1;
  snap:newState snap:Proposing ;
  snap:amount 15 ;
  snap:condition "3ge44fgef34343734" ;
  snap:preimage "3ge44fgef34343734" ;
  snap:expiresAt "2019-04-17T07:50:18Z"^^XML:dateTime .

Uses custom module? writing to /chats/:

:dd5e723f-7a61-4b59-9d51-70cf804e71fc
    dct:created "2023-12-14T13:29:16.759Z"^^xsd:dateTime;
    sioc:content "hello!";
    foaf:maker c:me;
    terms:liqidChatSignedCredential