FEP-6fcd: Account Export Container Format

Standards Fediverse Enhancement Proposals
1

This is a discussion thread for the proposed FEP-6fcd: Account Export Container Format.
Please use this thread to discuss the proposed FEP and any potential problems
or improvements that can be addressed.

Summary

This FEP describes a lightweight general purpose account export container format,
with the following properties:

Out of scope:

  • Encryption – handled in a separate layer
  • Compression – handled in a s
1 Like
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A manifest schema (e.g., JSON Schema) would be useful for documentation and backup verification purposes. For example, it took me a few minutes to determine that contents is repeated at each level of the file hierarchy (which makes sense, to distinguish files from file metadata).

Are manifest file entries only required for files that need metadata (since the files and directories are already represented by the tar file index)?

Is the url metadata entry required for each file entry?

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Great questions.

  • Good point, re JSON Schema, I’ll add that to the FEP
  • Yes, I think the spirit of it is – only add manifest file entries if they need metadata (if you have something interesting to say about them). Specifically, this is you as implementer trying to communicate to other devs, provide them with lightweight documentation about what to do with your file if they can’t immediately figure it out.
  • Hmmm my intuition is that the fep should require as few fields as possible? Though there isn’t that many other metadata fields to use, aside from url, so I don’t expect url-less metadata entries to be that common.
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So if an implementer chooses not to provide file metadata (beyond what tar provides already), they would include an empty contents section (since contents is required)?

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Ohhh good point. I think the thing to do is make contents optional.