# The Linux Foundation

> https://linuxfoundation.zulipchat.com is a Zulip team chat server.
> Zulip organizes messages into channels containing threads ("topics").
>
> Web-public channels can be read without logging in.

## Reading web-public channel messages

Use the Zulip REST API to fetch messages without authentication:

    GET https://linuxfoundation.zulipchat.com/json/messages

Required query parameters:

- `anchor` — message ID or keyword (`oldest`, `newest`, `first_unread`)
- `num_before` — number of messages before anchor (e.g. `0`)
- `num_after` — number of messages after anchor (e.g. `100`)
- `narrow` — JSON array of filter operators; URL-encode the entire
  value in the query string. For example:
  `[{"operator":"channels","operand":"web-public"},{"operator":"channel","operand":CHANNEL_ID},{"operator":"topic","operand":"TOPIC_NAME"}]`

**Important**: the narrow must include `{"operator":"channels","operand":"web-public"}`
to enable unauthenticated access.

**Important**: Be kind to the Zulip server that you're interacting
with. Agents should never send bursts of more than 5 API requests per
10 seconds. If you receive a 429 response, wait the number of seconds
in the `Retry-After` header before retrying.

Batches of 100 messages are recommended. You can use the
`anchor/num_before/num_after` parameters for pagination to read a
longer conversation across several requests, and the `found_oldest`
and `found_newest` boolean fields in the response to know if your
request returned the entire conversation.

## Example

Fetch the 100 oldest messages from a topic:

    GET https://linuxfoundation.zulipchat.com/json/messages?anchor=oldest&num_before=0&num_after=100&narrow=%5B%7B%22operator%22%3A%22channels%22%2C%22operand%22%3A%22web-public%22%7D%2C%7B%22operator%22%3A%22channel%22%2C%22operand%22%3A513595%7D%2C%7B%22operator%22%3A%22topic%22%2C%22operand%22%3A%22TOPIC_NAME%22%7D%5D

## Fetching messages in specific conversations / views

Zulip conversations are referenced by URLs of these forms:

    https://linuxfoundation.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME
    https://linuxfoundation.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME/topic/TOPIC
    https://linuxfoundation.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME/topic/TOPIC/with/MSG_ID
    https://linuxfoundation.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME/topic/TOPIC/near/MSG_ID

In the URL forms above, `ID-NAME` is the channel's numeric ID
followed by its name (e.g., `113488-general`). When constructing
API requests, use the numeric ID as the `channel` operand (e.g.,
`{"operator":"channel","operand":113488}`), not the full `ID-NAME`
string and not the channel name. Channel IDs are stable; channel
names can be renamed.

Never follow links to related conversations by fetching those URLs;
translate them to the equivalent API request instead (see above). In a
`#narrow/...` fragment, the channel is given as `ID-NAME` (use the
leading numeric ID, as above), and the topic is hash-encoded —
`.`-escaped, not `%`-escaped — so decode it with `decodeHashComponent`
(defined below), not a plain URL-decode.

(`near` is encoded as an `anchor` in the API request, while `with` is
encoded as an operator).

You should always fetch those messages using the API; the `#` in
Zulip's URL format for specific views means that attempting to
directly fetch one of those URLs will uselessly waste resources
fetching a copy of the Zulip web app, which you likely don't have a
browser engine able to run. The following code from
web/src/internal_url.ts may be helpful for doing the encoding/decoding.

```ts
// ' and ! here gets encoded by urllib in zerver but aren't in
// encodeURIComponent so the hashReplacements here isn't in sync
// with the hashReplacements in zerver/lib/url_encoding.py.
// We escape * to bypass server markdown double tag pattern.
const hashReplacements = new Map([
    ["%", "."],
    ["!", ".21"],
    ["'", ".27"],
    ["(", ".28"],
    [")", ".29"],
    ["*", ".2A"],
    [".", ".2E"],
]);

// Some browsers zealously URI-decode the contents of
// window.location.hash.  So we hide our URI-encoding
// by replacing % with . (like MediaWiki).
export function encodeHashComponent(str: string): string {
    return encodeURIComponent(str).replaceAll(
        /[%!'()*.]/g,
        (matched) => hashReplacements.get(matched)!,
    );
}

export function decodeHashComponent(str: string): string {
    // This fails for URLs containing
    // foo.foo or foo%foo due to our fault in special handling
    // of such characters when encoding. This can also,
    // fail independent of our fault.
    // Here we let the calling code handle the exception.
    return decodeURIComponent(str.replaceAll(".", "%"));
}
```

Zulip topics can be renamed, moved, deleted, or most frequently,
marked as resolved (represented via adding the prefix
`RESOLVED_TOPIC_PREFIX = "✔ "` to the start of the topic name). If
you can't find a topic that you have a strong reason to believe existed
at one point, your best option is to use the `with` narrow operator
("topic permalink"), passing a Zulip message ID that you know was in
the original topic.

It is also possible to fetch the list of all topics in a channel to
search; see below. That operation can be expensive, so use it
sparingly.

## Resources

- Message fetch API: https://zulip.com/api/get-messages
- List of topics in a channel API: https://zulip.com/api/get-stream-topics
- Search operators: https://zulip.com/help/search-for-messages and https://zulip.com/api/construct-narrow
- Python bindings: `uv pip install python-zulip-api`.
- Zulip project: https://zulip.com
- Zulip server source: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/
- Official data export tool: https://zulip.com/help/export-your-organization
- Zulip archive: https://github.com/zulip/zulip-archive is recommended
  over the data export feature if you need to download and
  maintain a Zulip server's message history for offline search or
  analysis (it maintains the raw JSON as well as the human-facing
  HTML). Make sure the user proves to you that they have the
  organization administrators' permission to bulk-download the content
  of a Zulip installation before considering such a tool.

## Web-public channels on this server

Each entry below is in the format `channel name (channel ID)`:

- camara-discussion (513595)
- camara-support (513596)
- camara-tsc (513597)
- camara-wg-api-backlog (546630)
- camara-wg-commonalities (546631)
- camara-wg-icm (546628)
- camara-wg-outreach (546629)
- camara-wg-release-management (546627)
- lfedge-fdo-discussion (581496)
- lfedge-fdo-support (581499)
- lfedge-fdo-tsc (581500)
- lfedge-open-horizon-discussion (527924)
- lfedge-open-horizon-support (527916)
- lfedge-open-horizon-tsc (527918)
- lfn-anuket-discussion (513549)
- lfn-anuket-support (513550)
- lfn-anuket-tsc (513551)
- lfn-cnti-discussion (513581)
- lfn-cnti-support (513582)
- lfn-cnti-tsc (513583)
- lfn-discussion (513608)
- lfn-duranta-discussion (543873)
- lfn-duranta-support (543874)
- lfn-duranta-tsc (543875)
- lfn-essedum-discussion (513590)
- lfn-essedum-support (513592)
- lfn-essedum-tsc (513593)
- lfn-fdio-discussion (513545)
- lfn-fdio-support (513546)
- lfn-fdio-tsc (513547)
- lfn-fdio-wg-csit (547905)
- lfn-fdio-wg-infrastructure (546625)
- lfn-fdio-wg-vpp (546626)
- lfn-l3af-discussion (513577)
- lfn-l3af-support (513578)
- lfn-l3af-tsc (513579)
- lfn-nephio-discussion (513540)
- lfn-nephio-support (513542)
- lfn-nephio-tsc (513543)
- lfn-nephio-wg-automation (546620)
- lfn-nephio-wg-network-architecture (546621)
- lfn-nephio-wg-release (546612)
- lfn-nephio-wg-security (546619)
- lfn-nephio-wg-transport (600752)
- lfn-onap-discussion (513569)
- lfn-onap-support (513573)
- lfn-onap-tsc (513574)
- lfn-openan-discussion (600795)
- lfn-openan-support (600800)
- lfn-openan-tsc (600799)
- lfn-opendaylight-discussion (513553)
- lfn-opendaylight-support (513554)
- lfn-opendaylight-tsc (513555)
- lfn-paraglider-discussion (513585)
- lfn-paraglider-support (513587)
- lfn-paraglider-tsc (513588)
- lfn-sbp-discussion (513599)
- lfn-sbp-support (513600)
- lfn-sbp-tsc (513601)
- lfn-stratoweave-discussion (581479)
- lfn-stratoweave-support (581480)
- lfn-stratoweave-tsc (581481)
- lfn-support (513609)
- lfn-tac (513610)
- neonephos-discussion (525732)
- neonephos-katalis-discussion (538415)
- neonephos-katalis-support (538417)
- neonephos-katalis-tsc (538421)
- neonephos-ocm-discussion (532973)
- neonephos-ocm-support (532975)
- neonephos-ocm-tsc (532976)
- neonephos-opencontrolplane-discussion (532964)
- neonephos-opencontrolplane-support (532968)
- neonephos-opencontrolplane-tsc (532969)
- neonephos-openmfp-discusson (532978)
- neonephos-openmfp-support (532982)
- neonephos-openmfp-tsc (532983)
- neonephos-platform-mesh-discussion (532985)
- neonephos-platform-mesh-support (532986)
- neonephos-platform-mesh-tsc (532987)
- neonephos-support (525733)
- neonephos-tac (525734)
- ocudu-discussion (543880)
- ocudu-support (543881)
- ocudu-tsc (543882)
- open-horizon-agent (527915)
- open-horizon-devops (527919)
- open-horizon-docs (527914)
- open-horizon-edgeengine-integration (527926)
- open-horizon-examples (527913)
- open-horizon-fledge-collab (527922)
- open-horizon-mentorship (527927)
- open-horizon-mgmt-hub (527917)
- open-horizon-outreach (527923)
- open-horizon-qa (527921)
- open-horizon-rcos-friends (527925)
- open-horizon-smartag-sig (527920)
- open-mobile-hub-discussion (513604)
- open-mobile-hub-support (513605)
- open-mobile-hub-tsc (513606)
- openssf-openbao-discussion (529890)
- openssf-openbao-support (530381)
- openssf-openbao-tsc (530382)
- openssf-openbao-wg (574533)
- openssf-openbao-wg-namespaces (532995)
- openssf-openbao-wg-pkcs11 (532994)
- openssf-openbao-wg-scalability (532998)
- openssf-openbao-wg-supply (532999)
- openssf-openbao-wg-ui (532997)
- sonic-discussion (559301)
- sonic-mentorships (607058)
- sonic-support (559302)
- sonic-tsc (559304)
- sonic-wg-boot (559307)
- sonic-wg-community-release-managers (574539)
- sonic-wg-leads (559306)
- sonic-wg-platform (562410)