2025-05-29 Helia WG

[SgtPooki]

Meeting event link: https://lu.ma/a9kmd432

Attendees

• @SgtPooki
• @achingbrain
• @2color

Quick FYIs

• Updating helia-wg meeting notes link (https://ipfs.fyi/helia-wg) - fix: point helia-wg to new github discussions ipfs.fyi#4

Agenda

• Demos?
  • js-libp2p devtools electron app
• discuss/review feat: support provider query parameter helia-verified-fetch#242
  • related: IPIP-504: provider query parameter as hint for HTTP Gateways specs#504
  • related: feat: embed provider webrtc maddr into share link ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-share-files#206
• fix: trustless gateway returned blocks can be limited #791 - are we good with this? any other changes we want to add here?
• Do we want to implement some logic to prevent providing as requested in feat: downloadOnly option for bitswap #748?
• Multiple/alternative data retrieval implementations #98 - Old issue, kind of related to block-brokers, but do we want to chat more deeply about things now? Are we still good with blocks as a reference of content or do we want a wider abstraction of block-brokers?
• IPNS publish interface.. - feat!: add ipns reproviding/republishing #764
• New github format... open discussions like js-libp2p meeting notes? or Q/A?

Notes

• electron demo.. cool stuff.
• provider hints spec: all on board.. should be a good benefit.. some fleshing out needed
  • helia basically supports this now with sessions, and PR open to preload sessions
  • maybe require peer ID in provider spec so we can determine new/updated multiaddrs?
• merge maxLimit trustless gateway PR
• feat: downloadOnly option for bitswap #748 - not currently possible.. we are good with allowing users to configure this usecase, need to agree on method for doing so.
• stream of blocks abstraction...
• IPNS republish, not currently doing anything, do we want to allow users to provide keychain externally, how do we facilitate the passing of the private key for republishing
  • to get the private key, we need to import some libp2p packages.. we can't republish unless we have the private key, so we need to build a keychain.. so user should provide a keyname.. maybe we can namespace, ipns-<something>
  • do we want a self key and use that by default? problem is you can only publish one record.. we can make it optional, and just generate one if not passed. if we generate one, how does the user then manage that key and record published with that newly generated key? do we have the user provide a name?
  • likely need a removeRecord function (or other D method from CRUD) so users can "stop publishing" if republish is called (which we are wanting to republish all published records)
    • option to remove the key, but don't by default, because user may want to keep this key for publishing another record later.
    • If records are removed from the datastore, it will not be found and republished during the next republish iteration
  • republish would be like reprovide for all your records, and if you want to republish a single one, you would publish that individual record

Action items

• Archive/export old helia WG notes that are in Notion.. update notion links to point to github discussions.