FDC3 for Web Browsers Discussion group 5th October 2023

[kriswest]

Group overview

Group convened to discuss how to enable FDC3 use in a web browser, without the use of a browser extension (such as fdc3-desktop-agent or a container).

Issue: https://github.com/finos/FDC3/issues/896 Mailing list discussion: https://groups.google.com/a/finos.org/g/fdc3/c/jCvlLjokBLs

In a recent email on the FDC3 mailing list, @kriswest wrote:

... I also want to add that there is clearly significant interest in the community in enabling FDC3 use on the web. There is a strong use case in that it would enable better onboarding journeys with less drop-off (where you use an app on the web with others before adopting a desktop container or similar).

and:

But there are also additional challenges such as how to make the API available reliably without importing a proprietary module from a particular vendor into every app, how to deal with more than one implementation of API/Desktop Agent in the browser at once, how to do this reliably and securely within the browser sandbox etc.. Work needs to be done in the Standard to solve these issues and to make web browser use possible in a future FDC3 Standard version - which I believe is possible (and likely to involve using a vendor-agnostic FDC3 NPM module to detect and connect to API implementation(s)). However, we're going to need to do that work to enable the aforementioned API implementations to be compliant and if we fail to hold the line now on compliance with the current version of the FDC3 Standard, that may never happen.

Shared doc with current draft: https://tick42-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/finsemble_datastore_interop_io/EZ0dfTCdRlJCnIF3C_1Oit0B7xK0OOJ0nAvC73dwad53AA?e=x2zlge

Relevant issue tags

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

Meeting Date

Thursday 05 Oct 2023 - 11am (US eastern timezone EST) / 4pm (London, BST)

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Agenda

• [x] Convene & roll call, review meeting notices (5mins)
• [x] Review action items from previous meeting (5mins)

  • 1054

• [x] Review (final?) protocol proposal: fdc3Ready() function (30 mins)
  • See Final Proposals in shared document
  • Which includes support for:
  • Containers
  • Child web apps started by a parent window or frame
  • Independently started web apps which can start their own Desktop Agent
  • App identity validation
  • Secure proxy messaging to the Desktop Agent
  • Q&A
  • Tasks to implement the proposal in FDC3
• [ ] Review (final?) API proposal widget and sub-apps to receive their own FDC3 API instances: getSubInstance() function (10 mins)
  • Q&A
  • Tasks to implement the proposal in FDC3
• [x] Next steps (5 mins)
  • Implementation
  • Presentation of proposal to SWG for ratification
• [x] AOB & Adjourn (5mins)

Minutes

• The meeting reviewed the first of the two proposals
  • No objections were raised to the main thrust of the proposal, although a few additional clarifications would be useful to avoid confusion
  • A number of comments were added to the document during and post-meeting that should be integrated into the next draft.
• The next meeting should cover updates based on feedback and the second proposal for retreiving additional Desktop Agent instances (@hampshanubs).

Action Items

• [x] @kriswest Update the first proposal based on feedback comments in the document
• [x] @kriswest Contact @hampshanubs about reviewing the second proposal
• [x] @kriswest prepare next meeting agenda, to include second proposal and proposal updates.

Untracked attendees

Full name	Affiliation	GitHub username

[novavi]

Derek Novavi / S&P Global

[mistryvinay]

Vinay Mistry / Symphony 🎵

[arpanoid]

Arpan Vaidya / State Street

[hughtroeger]

Hugh Troeger / FactSet