simplexcalc/README.md

simplexcalc

simplexcalc is a Go chat bot by @sneak for the SimpleX Chat network: it accepts every contact request and answers arithmetic such as 2 + 2 with the result.

Send it 2 + 2 and it replies 4; send 5 * 5/2 and it replies 12.5. It understands decimal numbers, + - * /, powers written 2^10 or 2**10, remainders written 7 % 3, signs and parentheses, and computes exactly, so 0.1 + 0.2 is 0.3. Anything else gets a short explanation instead of a result.

Getting Started

Build the image, write a random API credential onto a named volume, and run the bot with its SimpleX profile on the same volume:

git clone git@git.eeqj.de:sneak/simplexcalc.git
cd simplexcalc
make docker
docker run --rm -v simplexcalc-data:/var/lib/simplexcalc simplexcalc \
    sh -c 'umask 077 && od -An -N32 -tx1 /dev/urandom | tr -d " \n" \
        >/var/lib/simplexcalc/api-token'
docker run -d --name simplexcalc --restart unless-stopped \
    -v simplexcalc-data:/var/lib/simplexcalc \
    -p 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 -e API_TOKEN_FILE=/var/lib/simplexcalc/api-token \
    simplexcalc
docker logs simplexcalc 2>&1 | grep '"msg":"ready"'

The credential is 32 random bytes written as 64 hexadecimal characters to /var/lib/simplexcalc/api-token, readable only by the bot's user. -p 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 makes the API reachable from this host only; see API.

The ready log line carries the bot's contact address: address is the short link to share, and full_address is the same address in the long form that older SimpleX clients need. Open the link in any SimpleX Chat app, or paste it into its "connect via link" screen; the bot accepts at once, greets you, and answers every message you send it.

The address is stored on the simplexcalc-data volume. It survives restarts, image upgrades and recreating the container, and is lost only with the volume.

Messaging it from a terminal

The image carries the SimpleX Chat command-line client, so a throwaway second client can talk to the bot without installing anything. Replace ADDRESS with the bot's address:

docker run --rm -v simplexcalc-tester:/var/lib/simplexcalc simplexcalc \
    simplex-chat -d /var/lib/simplexcalc/tester --user-display-name tester \
    -e "/c ADDRESS" -t 30 --execute-log all
docker run --rm -v simplexcalc-tester:/var/lib/simplexcalc simplexcalc \
    simplex-chat -d /var/lib/simplexcalc/tester \
    -e "@calc 5 * 5/2" -t 20 --execute-log messages
docker volume rm simplexcalc-tester

The first command connects and prints the bot's greeting; the second sends 5 * 5/2 and prints the reply, 12.5.

Configuration

All configuration is environment variables, read once at startup. A .env file in the working directory is loaded automatically for development.

A variable that is set to something unparseable aborts startup. It is never quietly replaced by the default. Defaults apply only to variables that are absent.

• DATA_DIR — where the SimpleX database lives: the bot's profile, its keys, its address and its contacts. Default ./data; the image sets /var/lib/simplexcalc.
• DEBUG — true or false, default false. true logs every event the chat client sends.
• PORT — the TCP port the API listens on, on all interfaces: a whole number from 1 to 65535, default 8080.
• API_TOKEN_FILE — path of a file holding the API credential, at least 32 characters not counting the whitespace around them. The file is read once, at startup; one that cannot be read, or holds a shorter credential, aborts startup. Absent, the API still listens but refuses every request, and startup logs a warning saying so.

API

An HTTP API beside the chat client lets another program read the bot's chats. It speaks JSON on PORT.

Authentication. Every request carries the credential from API_TOKEN_FILE:

Authorization: Bearer {credential}

A request without it, or with a wrong one, gets 401 with WWW-Authenticate: Bearer and {"error":"unauthorized"}. No path is exempt. Without API_TOKEN_FILE, every request gets that answer. The file is read at startup, so a new credential takes a restart.

Errors are JSON with a short explanation, such as {"error":"not found"}; what went wrong inside goes to the bot's log.

GET /api/v1/chats

The bot's chats, ordered by id. The bot talks to people only one to one, so each chat is one of its contacts.

TOKEN=$(docker exec simplexcalc cat /var/lib/simplexcalc/api-token)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/chats

{
    "chats": [
        { "id": 3, "display_name": "tester", "contact_deleted": false },
        { "id": 4, "display_name": "tester", "contact_deleted": true }
    ]
}

• id — the chat's number, which is its contact's number in the chat client.
• display_name — the name the contact gave themselves. Nothing makes it unique.
• contact_deleted — true once the contact has deleted their chat with the bot. The chat stays in the list, but nothing more reaches them.

Entrypoints

This repo adheres to the Scripts to Rule Them All standard. The script/ entrypoints, each with a thin make shim:

• script/bootstrap (make bootstrap) — install build dependencies (git, make, go) idempotently. Linting additionally needs docker; markdown formatting needs docker or a local prettier.
• script/setup (make setup) — bootstrap plus the git pre-commit hook
• script/test (make test) — go test with the race detector and coverage, -count=1, 90 s timeout; quiet on success, verbose rerun on failure
• script/lint (make lint) — golangci-lint via docker only, against the digest-pinned image, then script/assert-step-ran and script/assert-context-complete over the build log. Nothing is installed locally and nothing runs on the host.
• script/fmt (make fmt) — format Go with gofmt and everything else with prettier (writes)
• script/fmt-check (make fmt-check) — the same scope, read-only
• script/check (make check) — test + lint + fmt-check. What the pre-commit hook runs. Never modifies files.
• script/docker (make docker) — build the image, tagged with script/projectname
• script/cibuild (make cibuild) — the CI gate: docker build --progress=plain --no-cache-filter=lint --no-cache-filter=builder . followed by assertions that the lint step and the test step really ran, and that both stages really received the whole repository. The Gitea workflow runs this on every push.
• script/precommit — the hook body: go mod tidy must not change go.mod/go.sum, then check
• script/install-precommit (make hooks) — installs the hook
• script/projectname — prints the project name; other scripts call it so they can stay identical across repos
• script/prettier, script/assert-step-ran, script/assert-context-complete, script/repo-source-manifest — helpers, not entrypoints

make build, make run, make dev, make deps and make clean are the ordinary conveniences. make run and make dev run the bot on the host, which needs the simplex-chat command-line client on PATH.

Why the assertions exist

A green docker build is not evidence that the checks ran. On an unchanged tree every layer comes from cache and the build exits 0 having executed nothing; BuildKit silently ignores a --no-cache-filter naming a stage that no longer exists; and a .dockerignore entry can remove a package from the build context, after which the linter genuinely runs, genuinely examines what it was handed, and genuinely reports 0 issues. over a repository with a violation in it.

So the build is not trusted. script/assert-step-ran requires the log to show the step executing and the tool's own success line coming out of it. script/assert-context-complete requires the file inventory each stage emitted to match the git index — an expectation .dockerignore cannot reach. Read the comments in those two scripts before changing either; they document what they still cannot see.

Rationale

SimpleX Chat is an end-to-end encrypted messenger with no user identifiers: people connect through addresses they choose to share. simplexcalc is a calculator anyone can reach that way, and a small, complete example of a SimpleX bot in Go: profile and address set-up, automatic acceptance, and replies, with the chat client in the same container.

Design

• One process tree, one container. simplexcalc run starts the SimpleX Chat command-line client, simplex-chat, as a child process, with its database under $DATA_DIR/simplex and its WebSocket API on 127.0.0.1:5225. That WebSocket has no authentication, which is why it is never exposed outside the container.
• The protocol (internal/simplex) is JSON over that WebSocket: a command carries a correlation id, its response carries the same id, and anything without one is an event. Only the fields the bot reads are decoded, so records that grow new fields in a later client release still decode.
• Set-up on every start (internal/bot): read the bot's profile, create its long-term address if it has none, and set the address to accept every contact request and to greet each new contact. The first start creates the profile itself, a bot profile named calc. The address is logged in the ready line.
• The API (internal/api): an HTTP server, routed with chi, that starts once set-up is done; if it cannot listen, the bot exits with an error, as when the chat client fails. Every request must carry the credential, compared in constant time; every response carries headers that forbid framing, content sniffing, caching and referrers, and a Permissions-Policy that denies the camera, microphone and location; a request body is capped at 64 KiB and a request's work at 10 seconds. Handlers call the chat client on the request's own goroutine, never on the one that delivers events, which also delivers the chat client's answers. When the bot stops, requests in progress get 5 seconds to finish before the chat client is stopped.
• Replies: for each text message a contact sends in a direct chat, the bot sends back the result, as a reply quoting the message. Group messages, files and the bot's own messages are ignored.
• Arithmetic (internal/calc): a small parser of its own reads numbers, + - * / % ^, signs and parentheses, and refuses anything else. go/constant computes with exact rationals. ^, also written **, is a power: it binds tighter than *, /, % and a sign on its left, and groups to the right, so 2^3^2 is 512, -2^2 is -4, (-2)^2 is 4 and 2^-1 is 0.5. % is the remainder and ranks with * and /; its result takes the sign of the divisor, as in Python, so 7 % 3 is 1, -7 % 3 is 2 and 7.5 % 2 is 1.5. A power with a whole exponent is exact, so 0.1^2 is 0.01 and 2^-1400 * 2^1400 is 1, unless go/constant could hold the result only rounded; that power, and one with a fractional exponent, is computed as a double, so 2^0.5 is 1.4142135623730951. A negative number to a fractional power is refused, as having no real result. Numbers are read as decimal, so 010 is ten. Input over 256 bytes is refused, exact powers are capped, and every number is held as a fraction, whole numbers too, under the 4096-bit limit below, so a message cannot make the bot do unbounded work. Whole numbers below 10²¹ are written exactly; other results in the shortest form that reads back as the same double, in exponent notation from 10²¹ up and below 10^-6. Refused as too large or too small: any number whose numerator or denominator reaches 4096 bits, wherever it appears, as go/constant rounds a fraction that grows that large (1e-1300 + 1); a power computed as a double whose base or result is outside the normal range of a double, about 2.2e-308 to 1.8e308 in magnitude, where a double keeps all its digits (1e-400^0.5); and a result other than zero outside that range, as it is written through a double (1e400, 2^-1400).
• Failure is an exit. If the chat client exits or the connection to it drops, the bot exits with an error and the container's restart policy starts both again. SIGTERM stops the bot, which stops the chat client with SIGTERM and kills it if it has not exited within 10 seconds.
• The image: a Go build stage, then an Ubuntu 22.04 runtime — the release the chat client is built for, which already has every library it links — with the simplex-chat v7.0.2 binary downloaded by an ADD whose checksum BuildKit verifies. It runs as an unprivileged user and is x86_64 only.

Operating it

Backup. Everything durable is on the volume: the SimpleX database, simplex_chat.db and simplex_agent.db, and the API credential, api-token. Stop the container before copying the database, since a copy taken from under the running client can be inconsistent. The database holds the bot's keys, so a copy lets its holder answer as the bot, and the credential lets its holder use the API; keep both as private as the running instance.

Upgrade. Rebuild the image and recreate the container with the same volume. The chat client migrates its database on start. A newer simplex-chat release is a change to the URL and the checksum on the ADD line in the Dockerfile.

TODO

See docs/TODO.md and the repository's issue tracker.

Author

@sneak