Matrix Hookshot

A Matrix bot for connecting to external services like GitHub, GitLab, JIRA, and more.

• Several services are supported out of the box.
• Webhooks let you connect all kinds of services, with the ability to write rich templates using JavaScript.
• No external database is required, instead using Matrix state as a persistent store.
• End-to-Bridge encryption allows bots to be used in encrypted Matrix rooms.
• Powerful widgets let you configure Hookshot from a room or the Element Extensions Store.

We richly support the following integrations:

• Challenge Hound
• Figma
• Generic Webhooks
• GitHub
• GitLab
• Jira
• RSS/Atom feeds

Get started by reading the setup guide!

Documentation

Documentation can be found on GitHub Pages.

You can build the documentation yourself by typing:

# cargo install mdbook
mdbook build
sensible-browser book/index.html

Contact

We have a Matrix support room (#hookshot:half-shot.uk).

Getting set up

This page explains how to set up Hookshot for use with a Matrix homeserver.

Requirements

Hookshot is fairly light on resources, and can run in as low as 100 MB or so of memory. Hookshot memory requirements may increase depending on the traffic and the number of rooms bridged.

You must have administrative access to an existing homeserver in order to set up Hookshot, as Hookshot requires the homeserver to be configured with its appservice registration.

Local installation

This bridge requires at least Node 22 and Rust installed.

To install Node.JS, nvm is a good option.

To install Rust, rustup is the preferred solution to stay up to date.

To clone and install, run:

git clone https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-hookshot.git
cd matrix-hookshot
yarn # or npm i

Starting the bridge (after configuring it), is a matter of setting the NODE_ENV environment variable to production or development, depending if you want better performance or more verbose logging, and then running it:

NODE_ENV=production yarn start

Installation via Docker

To get started quickly, you can use the Docker image halfshot/matrix-hookshot.

docker run \
    --name matrix-hookshot \
    -d \
    -p 9993:9993 \ # Homeserver port
    -p 9000:9000 \ # Webhook port
    -p 9002:9002 \ # Metrics port
    -v /etc/matrix-hookshot:/data \
    halfshot/matrix-hookshot:latest

Where /etc/matrix-hookshot would contain the configuration files config.yml and registration.yml. The passKey file should also be stored alongside these files. In your config, you should use the path /data/passkey.pem.

Installation via Helm

There's now a basic chart defined in helm/hookshot that can be used to deploy the Hookshot Docker container in a Kubernetes-native way.

More information on this method is available here

Configuration

Copy the config.sample.yml to a new file config.yml. The sample config is also hosted here for your convenience.

You should read and fill this in as the bridge will not start without a complete config.

You may validate your config without starting the service by running yarn validate-config. For Docker you can run docker run --rm -v /absolute-path-to/config.yml:/config.yml halfshot/matrix-hookshot node config/Config.js /config.yml

Copy registration.sample.yml into registration.yml and fill in:

At a minimum, you will need to replace the as_token and hs_token and change the domain part of the namespaces. The sample config can be also found at our github repo for your convienence.

You will need to link the registration file to the homeserver. Consult your homeserver documentation on how to add appservices. Synapse documents the process here.

Homeserver Configuration

In addition to providing the registration file above, you also need to tell Hookshot how to reach the homeserver which is hosting it. For clarity, Hookshot expects to be able to connect to an existing homeserver which has the Hookshot registration file configured.

bridge:
  domain: example.com # The homeserver's server name.
  url: http://localhost:8008 # The URL where Hookshot can reach the client-server API.
  mediaUrl: https://example.com # Optional. The url where media hosted on the homeserver is reachable (this should be publically reachable from the internet)
  port: 9993 # The port where hookshot will listen for appservice requests.
  bindAddress: 127.0.0.1 # The address which Hookshot will bind to. Docker users should set this to `0.0.0.0`.

The port and bindAddress must not conflict with the other listeners in the bridge config. This listener should not be reachable over the internet to users, as it's intended to be used by the homeserver exclusively. This service listens on /_matrix/app/.

Permissions

The bridge supports fine grained permission control over what services a user can access. By default, any user on the bridge's own homeserver has full permission to use it.

permissions:
  - actor: example.com
    services:
      - service: "*"
        level: admin

You must configure a set of "actors" with access to services. An actor can be:

• A MxID (also known as a User ID) e.g. "@Half-Shot:half-shot.uk"
• A homeserver domain e.g. matrix.org
• A roomId. This will allow any member of this room to complete actions. e.g. "!TlZdPIYrhwNvXlBiEk:half-shot.uk"
• "*", to match all users.

MxIDs. room IDs and * must be wrapped in quotes.

Each permission set can have a service. The service field can be:

• github
• gitlab
• jira
• feed
• figma
• webhooks
• challengehound
• *, for any service.

The level determines what permissions a user has access to on the named service(s). They are additive, one level grants all previous levels in addition to previous levels.

The level can be:

• commands Can run commands within connected rooms, but NOT log in to the bridge.
• login All the above, and can also log in to supported networks (such as GitHub, GitLab). This is the minimum level required to invite the bridge to rooms.
• notifications All the above, and can also bridge their own notifications. Only supported on GitHub.
• manageConnections All the above, and can create and delete connections (either via the provisioner, setup commands, or state events).
• admin All permissions. This allows you to perform administrative tasks like deleting connections from all rooms.

If any of the permissions matches positively for a user, they are granted access. For example:

permissions:
  - actor: example.com
    services:
      - service: GitHub
        level: manageConnections
  - actor: "@badapple:example.com"
    services:
      - service: GitHub
        level: login

would grant @badapple:example.com the right to manageConnections for GitHub, even though they were explicitly named for a lower permission.

Example

A typical setup might be.

permissions:
  # Allow all users to send commands to existing services
  - actor: "*"
    services:
      - service: "*"
        level: commands
  # Allow any user that is part of this space to manage github connections
  - actor: "!TlZdPIYrhwNvXlBiEk:half-shot.uk"
    services:
      - service: github
        level: manageConnections
  # Allow users on this domain to log in to jira and github.
  - actor: support.example.com
    services:
      - service: jira
        level: login
      - service: github
        level: commands
  # Allow users on this domain to enable notifications on any service.
  - actor: engineering.example.com
    services:
      - service: "*"
        level: notifications
  # Allow users on this domain to create connections.
  - actor: management.example.com
    services:
      - service: "*"
        level: manageConnections
  # Allow this specific user to do any action
  - actor: "@alice:example.com"
    services:
      - service: "*"
        level: admin

Listeners configuration

You will need to configure some listeners to make the bridge functional.

listeners:
  # (Optional) HTTP Listener configuration.
  # Bind resource endpoints to ports and addresses.
  # 'resources' may be any of webhooks, widgets, metrics, provisioning
  #
  - port: 9000
    bindAddress: 0.0.0.0
    resources:
      - webhooks
  - port: 9001
    bindAddress: 127.0.0.1
    resources:
      - metrics
      - provisioning

At a minimum, you should bind the webhooks resource to a port and address. You can have multiple resources on the same port, or one on each. Each listener MUST listen on a unique port.

You will also need to make this port accessible to the internet so services like GitHub can reach the bridge. It is recommended to factor Hookshot into your load balancer configuration, but currently this process is left as an exercise to the user.

However, if you use Nginx, have a look at this example:

    location ~ ^/widgetapi(.*)$ {
        set $backend "127.0.0.1:9002";
        proxy_pass http://$backend/widgetapi$1$is_args$args;
    }

This will pass all requests at /widgetapi to Hookshot.

In terms of API endpoints:

• The webhooks resource handles resources under /, so it should be on its own listener. Note that OAuth requests also go through this listener. Previous versions of the bridge listened for requests on / rather than /webhook. While this behaviour will continue to work, administators are advised to use /webhook.
• The metrics resource handles resources under /metrics.
• The provisioning resource handles resources under /v1/....
• The widgets resource handles resources under /widgetapi/v1.... This may only be bound to one listener at present.

Cache configuration

You can optionally enable a Redis-backed cache for Hookshot. This is generally a good thing to enable if you can afford to, as it will generally improve startup times. Some features such as resuming RSS/Atom feeds between restarts is also only possible with a external cache.

To enable, simply set:

cache:
  redisUri: "redis://redis-host:3679"

Services configuration

You will need to configure some services. Each service has its own documentation file inside the setup subdirectory.

• Feeds
• Figma
• GitHub
• GitLab
• Jira
• Webhooks

Logging

The bridge supports some basic logging options. The section is optional, and by default will log at an info level.

logging:
  # Level of information to report to the logs. Can be `debug`, `info`, `warn` or `error.
  level: info
  # Should the logs output in human-readable format or JSON. If you are using a third-party ingestion service like logstash, use this.
  json: false
  # Ignored if `json` is enabled. Should the logs print the levels in color. This will print extra characters around the logs which may not be suitable for some systems.
  colorize: true
  #  Ignored if `json` is enabled. The timestamp format to use in log lines. See https://github.com/taylorhakes/fecha#formatting-tokens for help on formatting tokens.
  timestampFormat: HH:mm:ss:SSS

JSON Logging

Enabling the json option will configure hookshot to output structured JSON logs. The schema looks like:

{
    // The level of the log.
    "level": "WARN",
    // The log message.
    "message": "Failed to connect to homeserver",
    // The module which emitted the log line.
    "module": "Bridge",
    // The timestamp of the log line.
    "timestamp": "11:45:02:198",
    // Optional error field, if the log includes an Error
    "error": "connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:8008",
    // Additional context, possibly including the error body.
    "args": [
        {
            "address": "127.0.0.1",
            "code": "ECONNREFUSED",
            "errno": -111,
            "port": 8008,
            "syscall": "connect"
        },
        "retrying in 5s"
    ]
}

Sample Configuration

Below is a sample bridge configuration file. The configuration file can be tweaked to change the behaviour of your bridge. A bridge of the server is required to apply any changes made to this file.

# This is an example configuration file

bridge:
  # Basic homeserver configuration
  domain: example.com
  url: http://localhost:8008
  mediaUrl: https://example.com
  port: 9993
  bindAddress: 127.0.0.1
logging:
  # Logging settings. You can have a severity debug,info,warn,error
  level: info
  colorize: true
  json: false
  timestampFormat: HH:mm:ss:SSS
passFile:
  # A passkey used to encrypt tokens stored inside the bridge.
  # Run openssl genpkey -out passkey.pem -outform PEM -algorithm RSA -pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:4096 to generate
  ./passkey.pem
listeners:
  # HTTP Listener configuration.
  # Bind resource endpoints to ports and addresses.
  # 'port' must be specified. Each listener must listen on a unique port.
  # 'bindAddress' will default to '127.0.0.1' if not specified, which may not be suited to Docker environments.
  # 'resources' may be any of webhooks, widgets, metrics, provisioning
  - port: 9000
    bindAddress: 0.0.0.0
    resources:
      - webhooks
  - port: 9001
    bindAddress: 127.0.0.1
    resources:
      - metrics
      - provisioning
  - port: 9002
    bindAddress: 0.0.0.0
    resources:
      - widgets

#cache:
#  # (Optional) Cache options for large scale deployments. 
#  #    For encryption to work, this must be configured.
#  redisUri: redis://localhost:6379

#encryption:
#  # (Optional) Configuration for encryption support in the bridge.
#  # If omitted, encryption support will be disabled.
#  storagePath:
#    # Path to the directory used to store encryption files. These files must be persist between restarts of the service.
#    ./cryptostore

#permissions:
#  # (Optional) Permissions for using the bridge. See docs/setup.md#permissions for help
#  - actor: example.com
#    services:
#      - service: "*"
#        level: admin

#github:
#  # (Optional) Configure this to enable GitHub support
#  auth:
#    # Authentication for the GitHub App.
#    id: 123
#    privateKeyFile: github-key.pem
#  webhook:
#    # Webhook settings for the GitHub app.
#    secret: secrettoken
#  oauth:
#    # (Optional) Settings for allowing users to sign in via OAuth.
#    client_id: foo
#    client_secret: bar
#    redirect_uri: https://example.com/oauth/
#  defaultOptions:
#    # (Optional) Default options for GitHub connections.
#    showIssueRoomLink: false
#    hotlinkIssues:
#      prefix: "#"
#  userIdPrefix:
#    # (Optional) Prefix used when creating ghost users for GitHub accounts.
#    _github_

#gitlab:
#  # (Optional) Configure this to enable GitLab support
#  instances:
#    gitlab.com:
#      url: https://gitlab.com
#  webhook:
#    secret: secrettoken
#    publicUrl: https://example.com/hookshot/
#  userIdPrefix:
#    # (Optional) Prefix used when creating ghost users for GitLab accounts.
#    _gitlab_
#  commentDebounceMs:
#    # (Optional) Aggregate comments by waiting this many miliseconds before posting them to Matrix. Defaults to 5000 (5 seconds)
#    5000

#jira:
#  # (Optional) Configure this to enable Jira support. Only specify `url` if you are using a On Premise install (i.e. not atlassian.com)
#  webhook:
#    # Webhook settings for JIRA
#    secret: secrettoken
#  oauth:
#    # (Optional) OAuth settings for connecting users to JIRA. See documentation for more information
#    client_id: foo
#    client_secret: bar
#    redirect_uri: https://example.com/oauth/

#generic:
#  # (Optional) Support for generic webhook events.
#  #'allowJsTransformationFunctions' will allow users to write short transformation snippets in code, and thus is unsafe in untrusted environments

#  enabled: false
#  outbound: false
#  urlPrefix: https://example.com/webhook/
#  userIdPrefix: _webhooks_
#  allowJsTransformationFunctions: false
#  waitForComplete: false
#  enableHttpGet: false
#  sendExpiryNotice: false
#  requireExpiryTime: false
#  maxExpiryTime: 30d

#figma:
#  # (Optional) Configure this to enable Figma support
#  publicUrl: https://example.com/hookshot/
#  instances:
#    your-instance:
#      teamId: your-team-id
#      accessToken: your-personal-access-token
#      passcode: your-webhook-passcode

#feeds:
#  # (Optional) Configure this to enable RSS/Atom feed support
#  enabled: false
#  pollIntervalSeconds: 600
#  pollTimeoutSeconds: 30
#  pollConcurrency: 4

#bot:
#  # (Optional) Define profile information for the bot user
#  displayname: Hookshot Bot
#  avatar: mxc://half-shot.uk/2876e89ccade4cb615e210c458e2a7a6883fe17d

#serviceBots:
#  # (Optional) Define additional bot users for specific services
#  - localpart: feeds
#    displayname: Feeds
#    avatar: ./assets/feeds_avatar.png
#    prefix: "!feeds"
#    service: feeds

#widgets:
#  # (Optional) EXPERIMENTAL support for complimentary widgets
#  addToAdminRooms: false
#  publicUrl: https://example.com/widgetapi/v1/static/
#  roomSetupWidget:
#    addOnInvite: false
#  disallowedIpRanges:
#    - 127.0.0.0/8
#    - 10.0.0.0/8
#    - 172.16.0.0/12
#    - 192.168.0.0/16
#    - 100.64.0.0/10
#    - 192.0.0.0/24
#    - 169.254.0.0/16
#    - 192.88.99.0/24
#    - 198.18.0.0/15
#    - 192.0.2.0/24
#    - 198.51.100.0/24
#    - 203.0.113.0/24
#    - 224.0.0.0/4
#    - ::1/128
#    - fe80::/10
#    - fc00::/7
#    - 2001:db8::/32
#    - ff00::/8
#    - fec0::/10
#  branding:
#    widgetTitle: Hookshot Configuration

#provisioning:
#  # (Optional) Provisioning API for integration managers
#  secret: "!secretToken"

#metrics:
#  # (Optional) Prometheus metrics support
#  enabled: true

#sentry:
#  # (Optional) Configure Sentry error reporting
#  dsn: https://examplePublicKey@o0.ingest.sentry.io/0
#  environment: production

Feeds

You can configure hookshot to bridge RSS/Atom feeds into Matrix.

Configuration

feeds:
  # (Optional) Configure this to enable RSS/Atom feed support
  #
  enabled: true
  pollIntervalSeconds: 600

pollIntervalSeconds specifies how often each feed will be checked for updates. It may be checked less often if under exceptional load, but it will never be checked more often than every pollIntervalSeconds.

Each feed will only be checked once, regardless of the number of rooms to which it's bridged.

No entries will be bridged upon the “initial sync” -- all entries that exist at the moment of setup will be considered to be already seen.

Please note that Hookshot must be configured with Redis to retain seen entries between restarts. By default, Hookshot will run an "initial sync" on each startup and will not process any entries from feeds from before the first sync.

Usage

Adding new feeds

To add a feed to your room:

• Invite the bot user to the room.
• Make sure the bot able to send state events (usually the Moderator power level in clients)
• Say !hookshot feed <URL> where <URL> links to an RSS/Atom feed you want to subscribe to.

Listing feeds

You can list all feeds that a room you're in is currently subscribed to with !hookshot feed list. It requires no special permissions from the user issuing the command. Optionally you can format the list as json or yaml with !hookshot feed list <format>.

Removing feeds

To remove a feed from a room, say !hookshot feed remove <URL>, with the URL specifying which feed you want to unsubscribe from.

Feed templates

You can optionally give a feed a specific template to use when sending a message into a room. A template may include any of the following tokens:

If not specified, the default template is New post in $FEEDNAME: $LINK.

Figma

Setting up

To bridge Figma webhooks with Hookshot, you will need:

• A personal access token with admin access to the team you intend to bridge.
• A figma account that is on the professional tier, as the free tier does provide webhook access.
• Your team ID. You can get this by going to the team page on Figma, and looking for the ID in the url (e.g. 12345 in https://www.figma.com/files/team/12345/...)

Configuration

You can now set some configuration in the bridge config.yml

figma:
  publicUrl: https://example.com/hookshot/
  instances:
    your-instance:
      teamId: your-team-id
      accessToken: your-personal-access-token
      passcode: your-webhook-passcode

your-instance should be a friendly name for your instance E.g. matrix-dot-org.

The publicUrl value must be the public path to /figma/webhook on the webhooks listener. E.g. if your load balancer points https://example.com/hookshot to the bridge's webhooks listener, you should use the path https://example.com/hookshot/figma/webhook.

The accessToken should be the personal access token for your account.

The passcode should be a randomly generated code which is used to authenticate requests from Figma.

The bridge will automatically set up a webhook on Figma for you upon startup, and will automatically reconfigure that webhook if the publicUrl or passcode changes.

Next steps

If you have followed these steps correctly, Figma should now be configured with hookshot 🥳.

To bridge a figma file into your room, you should:

• Invite the bot user to the room.
• Make sure the bot able to send state events (usually the Moderator power level in clients)
• Say !hookshot figma file fileUrl where fileUrl is the URL to the figma file e.g https://www.figma.com/files/project/12345/...
• Figma comments will now be bridged into the room.

Setting up GitHub

GitHub App

This bridge requires a GitHub App. You will need to create one.

Webhook

The Webhook URL should point to the public address of your hookshot instance, at the / path. You MUST also provide a secret, which should match the github.webhook.secret value in your config.

Permissions

You will need to enable the following permissions:

• Repository
  • Actions (read)
  • Contents (read)
  • Discussions (read & write)
  • Issues (read & write)
  • Metadata
  • Projects (read & write)
  • Pull requests (read & write)
• Organisation
  • Team Discussions (read & write)

Hookshot handles the following webhook event types:

• Commit comment
• Create
• Delete
• Discussion
• Discussion comment
• Issue comment
• Issues
• Project
• Project card
• Project column
• Pull request
• Pull request review
• Pull request review comment
• Push
• Release
• Repository
• Workflow run

You can disable any of these to disable the events being handled in Hookshot.

Once you have set up your app, you can move onto configuring the bridge:

Bridge Configuration

The GitHub service requires a few connection options.

github:
  enterpriseUrl: "https://your-enterprise-address.com"
  auth:
    id: 123
    privateKeyFile: github-key.pem
  webhook:
    secret: secrettoken
  oauth:
    client_id: foo
    client_secret: bar
    redirect_uri: https://example.com/oauth/
  defaultOptions:
    showIssueRoomLink: false

If you are using an on-premise / enterprise edition of GitHub, you need provide the base URL in enterpriseUrl. You do not need to specify the /api/... path in the URL.

In the auth section, you will need to supply the App ID given in your GitHub App page. The privateKeyFile can be generated by clicking "Generate a private key" under the Private keys section on the GitHub app page. Docker users should store this file alongside config.yml and provide the path /data/github-key.pem.

The webhook section takes a secret, which is Webhook secret on the GitHub App page.

The oauth section should include both the Client ID and Client Secret on the GitHub App page. The redirect_uri value must be the public path to /oauth on the webhooks path. E.g. if your load balancer points https://example.com/hookshot to the bridge webhooks listener, you should use the path https://example.com/hookshot/oauth. This value MUST exactly match the Callback URL on the GitHub App page.

defaultOptions allows you to set some defaults for room connections. Options listed on this page are supported.

Next steps

If you have followed these steps correctly, GitHub should now be configured with hookshot 🥳.

You can now follow the guide on authenticating with GitHub, and then bridging a room

GitLab

Configuration

GitLab configuration is fairly straight-forward:

gitlab:
  # (Optional) Configure this to enable GitLab support
  #
  instances:
    gitlab.com:
      url: https://gitlab.com
  webhook:
    secret: secrettoken
    publicUrl: https://example.com/webhooks/

You need to list all the instances you plan to connect to in the config.yml. This is used so that users can give a short name like gitlab or matrix.org when they want to specify an instance.

You should generate a webhook secret (e.g. pwgen -n 64 -s 1) and then use this as your "Secret token" when adding webhooks.

The publicUrl must be the URL where GitLab webhook events are received (i.e. the path to / for your webhooks listener).

Adding a repository

You can now follow the guide on authenticating with GitLab, and then bridging a room

JIRA

Adding a webhook to a JIRA Instance

This should be done for the JIRA instance you wish to bridge. The setup steps are the same for both On-Prem and Cloud.

You need to go to the WebHooks configuration page under Settings > System. Note that this may require administrative access to the JIRA instance.

Next, add a webhook that points to / on the public webhooks address for hookshot. You should also include a secret value by appending ?secret=your-webhook-secret. The secret value can be anything, but should be reasonably secure and should also be stored in the config.yml file.

Ensure that you enable all the events that you wish to be bridged.

Configuration

You can now set some configuration in the bridge config.yml:

jira:
  webhook:
    secret: some-secret
  oauth:
    ... # See below

You can omit the oauth section if you are not planning to allow users to log in and use interactive features (i.e. webhook only mode).

Connecting Matrix users to JIRA

Hookshot allows Matrix users to directly interact with JIRA through the bridge. The setup process differs depending on whether you are running a on-premise/enterprise instance or using Atlassian's cloud service.

JIRA OAuth for Cloud

You will need a Atlassian account with the ability to use the developer tools in order to create the app.

You'll first need to head to https://developer.atlassian.com/console/myapps/create-3lo-app/ to create a "OAuth 2.0 (3LO)" integration.

Once named and created, you will need to:

1. Enable the User REST, Jira Platform REST and User Identity APIs under Permissions.
2. Use rotating tokens under Authorisation.
3. Set a callback url. This will be the public URL to hookshot with a path of /jira/oauth.
4. Copy the client ID and Secret from Settings

You can now set some configuration in the bridge config.yml

jira:
  webhook:
    # A secret string generated by you.
    secret: some-secret
  oauth:
    client_id: your-client-id
    client_secret: your-client-secret
    redirect_uri: https://example.com/hookshot/jira/oauth

The redirect_uri value must be the public path to /jira/oauth on the webhooks path. E.g. if your load balancer points https://example.com/hookshot to the bridge webhooks listener, you should use the path https://example.com/hookshot/jira/oauth. This value MUST exactly match the Callback URL on the JIRA integration page page.

JIRA for On-Premise (Datacenter)

These instructions are written for Jira Datacenter 8.x. These instructions use openssl to generate certificates, so users on non-Unix systems will need to find an alternative way to generate these certificates.

To begin, configure your config.yml:

jira:
  url: https://yourjirainstance.com # The location of your jira instance.
  webhook:
    # A secret string generated by you.
    secret: Ieph7iecheiThoo1othaineewieSh1koh2chainohtooyoh4waht1oetoaSoh6oh
  oauth:
    # Another secret key generated by you.
    consumerKey: secret-consumer-key
    # Path to a private key. Generate this with `openssl genrsa -out jira_privatekey.pem 4096`
    privateKey: jira_privatekey.pem
    # The path to your webhooks listener on the "/jira/oauth" path.
    redirect_uri: http://localhost:5065/jira/oauth

To start with, set up your JIRA instance to support OAuth.

1. Open the Administration page for your JIRA instance.
2. Click Applications.
3. Click Application Links.
   1. Newer versions of JIRA need you to click "Create link"
4. In the text box, enter "https://github.com/Half-Shot/matrix-hookshot". Jira will complain but click Continue.
5. Fill in the details:
   1. The Application Name can be anything, but for simplicty we usually use matrix-hookshot
   2. The Application Type should be Generic Application
   3. The Consumer key, and shared secret can be any string, they are not used.
   4. The URLs can be any URL, they are not used (e.g. https://example.com)
   5. Ensure you enable Create incoming link
   6. Click Continue
6. On the next step:
   1. Enter your consumerKey from the config file above.
   2. The consumerName can be anything, but will be visible to users of your app. You could use something like Matrix, Hookshot or anything else.
   3. The publicKey can be generated by running openssl rsa -in jira_privatekey.pem -pubout on the key you created earlier.
7. Congratulations, you now have OAuth set up.

Next steps

If you have followed these steps correctly, JIRA should now be configured with hookshot 🥳.

You can now follow the guide on authenticating with JIRA.

Webhooks

Hookshot supports two kinds of webhooks, inbound (previously known as Generic Webhooks) and outbound.

Configuration

You will need to add the following configuration to the config file.

generic:
  enabled: true
  outbound: true # For outbound webhook support
  urlPrefix: https://example.com/mywebhookspath/
  allowJsTransformationFunctions: false
  waitForComplete: false
  enableHttpGet: false
  # maxExpiryTime: 30d
  # sendExpiryNotice: false
  # userIdPrefix: webhook_

Inbound Webhooks

Hookshot supports generic webhook support so that services can send messages into Matrix rooms without being aware of the Matrix protocol. This works by having services hit a unique URL that then transforms a HTTP payload into a Matrix message.

The webhooks listener listens on the path /webhook.

The bridge listens for incoming webhooks requests on the host and port provided in the listeners config.

urlPrefix describes the public facing URL of your webhook handler. For instance, if your load balancer redirected webhook requests from https://example.com/mywebhookspath to the bridge (on /webhook), an example webhook URL would look like: https://example.com/mywebhookspath/abcdef.

waitForComplete causes the bridge to wait until the webhook is processed before sending a response. Some services prefer you always respond with a 200 as soon as the webhook has entered processing (false) while others prefer to know if the resulting Matrix message has been sent (true). By default this is false.

enableHttpGet means that webhooks can be triggered by GET requests, in addition to POST and PUT. This was previously on by default, but is now disabled due to concerns mentioned below.

maxExpiryTime sets an upper limit on how long a webhook can be valid for before the bridge expires it. By default this is unlimited. This takes a duration represented by a string. E.g. "30d" is 30 days. See this page for available units. Additionally:

• sendExpiryNotice configures whether a message is sent into a room when the connection is close to expiring.
• requireExpiryTime forbids creating a webhook without a expiry time. This does not apply to existing webhooks.

You may set a userIdPrefix to create a specific user for each new webhook connection in a room. For example, a connection with a name like example for a prefix of webhook_ will create a user called @webhook_example:example.com. If you enable this option, you need to configure the user to be part of your registration file e.g.:

# registration.yaml
...
namespaces:
  users:
    - regex: "@webhook_.+:example.com" # Where example.com is your domain name.
      exclusive: true

Adding a webhook

To add a webhook to your room:

• Invite the bot user to the room.
• Make sure the bot able to send state events (usually the Moderator power level in clients)
• Say !hookshot webhook example where example is a name for your hook.
• The bot will respond with the webhook URL to be sent to services.

Webhook Handling

Hookshot handles POST and PUT HTTP requests by default.

Hookshot handles HTTP requests with a method of GET, POST or PUT.

If the request is a GET request, the query parameters are assumed to be the body. Otherwise, the body of the request should be a supported payload.

If the body contains a text key, then that key will be used as a message body in Matrix (aka body). This text will be automatically converted from Markdown to HTML (unless a html key is provided.).

If the body contains a html key, then that key will be used as the HTML message body in Matrix (aka formatted_body). A text key fallback MUST still be provided.

If the body also contains a username key, then the message will be prepended by the given username. This will be prepended to both text and html.

If the body does NOT contain a text field, the full payload will be sent to the room. This can be adapted into a message by creating a JavaScript transformation function.

Payload formats

If the request is a POST/PUT, the body of the request will be decoded and stored inside the event. Currently, Hookshot supports:

• XML, when the Content-Type header ends in /xml or +xml.
• Web form data, when the Content-Type header is application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
• JSON, when the Content-Type header is application/json.
• Text, when the Content-Type header begins with text/.

Decoding is done in the order given above. E.g. text/xml would be parsed as XML. Any formats not described above are not decoded.

GET requests

In previous versions of hookshot, it would also handle the GET HTTP method. This was disabled due to concerns that it was too easy for the webhook to be inadvertently triggered by URL preview features in clients and servers. If you still need this functionality, you can enable it in the config.

Hookshot will insert the full content of the body into a key under the Matrix event called uk.half-shot.hookshot.webhook_data, which may be useful if you have other integrations that would like to make use of the raw request body.

Wait for complete

It is possible to choose whether a webhook response should be instant, or after hookshot has handled the message. The reason for this is that some services expect a quick response time (like Slack) whereas others will wait for the request to complete. You can specify this either globally in your config, or on the widget with waitForComplete.

If you make use of the webhookResponse feature, you will need to enable waitForComplete as otherwise hookshot will immeditately respond with it's default response values.

Expiring webhooks

Webhooks can be configured to expire, such that beyond a certain date they will fail any incoming requests. Currently this expiry time is mutable, so anybody able to configure connections will be able to change the expiry date. Hookshot will send a notice to the room at large when the webhook has less than 3 days until it's due to expire (if sendExpiryNotice is set).

JavaScript Transformations

This bridge supports creating small JavaScript snippets to translate an incoming webhook payload into a message for the room, giving you a very powerful ability to generate messages based on whatever input is coming in.

The input is parsed and executed within a separate JavaScript Virtual Machine context, and is limited to an execution time of 2 seconds. With that said, the feature is disabled by default and allowJsTransformationFunctions must be enabled in the config.

The code snippets can be edited by editing the Matrix state event corresponding to this connection (with a state type of uk.half-shot.matrix-hookshot.generic.hook). Because this is a fairly advanced feature, this documentation won't go into how to edit state events from your client. Please seek out documentation from your client on how to achieve this.

The script string should be set within the state event under the transformationFunction key.

Script API

Transformation scripts have a versioned API. You can check the version of the API that the hookshot instance supports at runtime by checking the HookshotApiVersion variable. If the variable is undefined, it should be considered v1.

The execution environment will contain a data variable, which will be the body of the incoming request (see Payload formats). Scripts are executed synchronously and expect the result variable to be set.

If the script contains errors or is otherwise unable to work, the bridge will send an error to the room. You can check the logs of the bridge for a more precise error.

V2 API

The v2 api expects an object to be returned from the result variable.

{
  "version": "v2" // The version of the schema being returned from the function. This is always "v2".
  "empty": true|false, // Should the webhook be ignored and no output returned. The default is false (plain must be provided).
  "plain": "Some text", // The plaintext value to be used for the Matrix message.
  "html": "<b>Some</b> text", // The HTML value to be used for the Matrix message. If not provided, plain will be interpreted as markdown.
  "msgtype": "some.type", // The message type, such as m.notice or m.text, to be used for the Matrix message. If not provided, m.notice will be used.
  "webhookResponse": { // Optional response to send to the webhook requestor. All fields are optional. Defaults listed.
    "body": "{ \"ok\": true }",
    "contentType": "application/json",
    "statusCode": 200
  }
}

Example script

Where data = {"counter": 5, "maxValue": 4}

if (data.counter === undefined) {
  // The API didn't give us a counter, send no message.
  result = {empty: true, version: "v2"};
} else if (data.counter > data.maxValue) {
    result = {plain: `**Oh no!** The counter has gone over by ${data.counter - data.maxValue}`, version: "v2"};
} else {
    result = {plain: `*Everything is fine*, the counter is under by ${data.maxValue - data.counter}`, version: "v2"};
}

V1 API

The v1 API expects result to be a string. The string will be automatically interpreted as Markdown and transformed into HTML. All webhook messages will be prefixed with Received webhook:. If result is falsey (undefined, false or null) then the message will be No content.

Example script

Where data = {"counter": 5, "maxValue": 4}

if (data.counter > data.maxValue) {
    result = `**Oh no!** The counter has gone over by ${data.counter - data.maxValue}`
} else {
    result = `*Everything is fine*, the counter is under by ${data.maxValue - data.counter}`
}

Outbound webhooks

You can also configure Hookshot to send outgoing requests to other services when a message appears on Matrix. To do so, you need to configure hookshot to enable outgoing messages with:

generic:
  outbound: true

Request format

Requests can be sent to any service that accepts HTTP requests. You may configure Hookshot to either use the HTTP PUT (default) or POST methods.

Each request will contain 3 headers which you may use to authenticate and direct traffic:

• 'X-Matrix-Hookshot-EventId' contains the event's ID.
• 'X-Matrix-Hookshot-RoomId' contains the room ID where the message was sent.
• 'X-Matrix-Hookshot-Token' is the unique authentication token provided when you created the webhook. Use this to verify that the message came from Hookshot.

The payloads are formatted as multipart/form-data.

The first file contains the event JSON data, proviced as the event file. This is a raw representation of the Matrix event data. If the event was encrypted, this will be the decrypted body.

If any media is linked to in the event, then a second file will be present named media which will contain the media referenced in the event.

All events that occur in the room will be sent to the outbound URL, so be careful to ensure your remote service can filter the traffic appropriately (e.g. check the type in the event JSON)

ChallengeHound

You can configure Hookshot to bridge ChallengeHound activites into Matrix.

Getting the API secret.

You will need to email ChallengeHound support for an API token. They seem happy to provide one as long as you are an admin of a challenge. See this support article

challengeHound:
  token: <the token>

Usage

You can add a new challenge hound challenge by command:

challengehound add https://www.challengehound.com/challenge/abc-def

and remove it with the same command

challengehound remove https://www.challengehound.com/challenge/abc-def

Hookshot will periodically refetch activities from the challenge and send a notice when a new one is completed. Note that Hookshot uses your configured cache to store seen activities. If you have not configured Redis caching, it will default to in-memory storage which means activites will repeat on restart.

Usage

This section covers how to use the bridge, once it's set up. We break these down into categories:

• Authentication: How to connect your user account to a remote service to use rich commands.
• Room Connections: How to start connecting rooms to services.

If you are looking for help on what bot commands you can run in a room, you can refer to the help information by saying*:

• !gh help in rooms connected to GitHub.
• !gl help in rooms connected to GitLab.
• !jira help in rooms connected to JIRA.

*the prefix may vary if the commandPrefix configuration in the room is set.

Dynamic Rooms

Some bridges support dynamically creating rooms that point to resources based on an alias given by a user.

Presently, the following are supported:

• #github_$owner:example.com - For a Matrix space containing a user's discussions and repositories
• #github_$owner_$repo:example.com - For GitHub repositories
• #github_$owner_$repo_$issuenumber:example.com - For GitHub issues
• #github_disc_$owner_$repo:example.com - For GitHub discussions for a repository

Where $word is replaced by the appropriate value.

(Some of these may not be supported, depending on bridge configuration and registration file changes)

Disabling support

This feature can be disabled simply by removing alias fields from the registration file.

Authenticating

To authenticate with services, you must first have a DM room with the bridge set up. In this guide, we are going to assume the bot is called @hookshot:example.com but this will vary for your setup. For all the instructions below, commands should only be executed in the DM room.

GitHub

You can authenticate via OAuth or a Personal Access Token (PAT) when using GitHub. Authentication is required when trying to bridge GitHub resources into rooms.

To authenticate with a personal access token:

1. Open https://github.com/settings/tokens (Github > Settings > Developer Settings / Personal access tokens)

2. Click Generate new token

3. Give it a good name, and a sensible expiration date. For scopes you will need:

   • Repo (to access repo information)
     • If you want notifications for private repos, you need repo: Full control of private repositories. If you just want notifications for public repos, you only need:
       • repo:status
       • public_repo
   • Workflow (if you want to be able to launch workflows / GitHub actions from Matrix)
   • Notifications (if you want to bridge in your notifications to Matrix)
   • User
     • read:user
   • write:discussion (for GitHub discussion support)
     • read:discussion

4. Send the generated token to the bridge by saying github setpersonaltoken %your-token%. You can redact the message afterwards if you like.

5. The bridge will have connected you.

To authenticate via OAuth, you will need to have configured OAuth support in your config.yml, and have the endpoints required accessible from the internet.

• Say github login to get the URL to authenticate via.
• Click the URL sent by the bot.
• Follow the steps, ensuring you authenticate with the right user.
• If all goes well, you will now be connected.

You can check the status of authenticated instances by saying github status.

GitLab

You can authenticate with GitLab by supplying a Personal Access Token. OAuth-style authentication isn't supported yet.

• You will need to have configured a GitLab instance in your config.yml for the instance you want to log in to.
• Open https://%instance%/-/profile/personal_access_tokens (GitLab > User Settings > Access Tokens), where instance is your GitLab instance address.
  • For the public GitLab server, this would be "gitlab.com"
• Give it a good name, and a sensible expiration date. For scopes you will need to tick api.
• Send the generated token to the bridge by saying gitlab personaltoken %instance% %your-token%. You can redact the message afterwards if you like.
• The bridge will have connected you. You can check the status at any time by saying gitlab hastoken %instance%

JIRA

You can log in to JIRA via OAuth. This means you will need to have configured OAuth support in your config.yml, and have the endpoints required accessible from the internet. Authentication is required when trying to bridge JIRA resources into rooms.

• Say jira login to get the URL to authenticate via.
• Click the URL sent by the bot.
• Follow the steps, ensuring you authenticate with the right user.
• If all goes well, you will now be connected. You can check the status of authenticated instances by saying jira whoami

Room Configuration

Hookshot works off the principle of Connections.

A room can have many connections to different services. The connections are defined in the room state of a room. A connection defines the service it connects to, the type of integration (e.g. GitHub repo, Jira Project) and any additional configuration.

Hookshot supports several connection types, which are defined under the Room Configuration heading.

The availability of connection types depends on the configuration provided to hookshot.

The !hookshot command

Rooms can be bridged by inviting the hookshot bot into a room, and then running the !hookshot command. Running !hookshot help will give you some details, but you should see the documentation provided for information on each connection type.

GitHub Repository

This connection type connects a GitHub repository (e.g. https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-hookshot) to a room.

You can run commands to create and manipulate issues, and receive notifications when something changes such as a new release.

Setting up

To set up a connection to a GitHub Repository in a new room:

(NB you must have permission to bridge GitHub repositories before you can use this command, see auth.)

1. The bridge will need to either:
   • Have a GitHub installation registered with the organisation (or GitHub user account)
   • The requesting user must be authenticated with the bridge via OAuth and the repository must be part of their GitHub account.
2. Create a new, unencrypted room. It can be public or private.
3. Invite the bridge bot (e.g. @hookshot:example.com).
4. Give the bridge bot moderator permissions or higher (power level 50) (or otherwise configure the room so the bot can edit room state).
5. Send the command !hookshot github repo https://github.com/my/project.
6. If you have permission to bridge this repo, the bridge will respond with a confirmation message.

Configuration

This connection supports a few options which can be defined in the room state:

Supported event types

This connection supports sending messages when the following actions happen on the repository.

Note: Some of these event types are enabled by default (marked with a *). When ignoreHooks is defined, the events marked as default below will be enabled. Otherwise, this is ignored.

• issue *
  • issue.created *
  • issue.changed *
  • issue.edited *
  • issue.labeled *
• pull_request *
  • pull_request.closed *
  • pull_request.merged *
  • pull_request.opened *
  • pull_request.ready_for_review *
  • pull_request.reviewed *
• push
• release *
  • release.created *
  • release.drafted
• workflow.run
  • workflow.run.success
  • workflow.run.failure
  • workflow.run.neutral
  • workflow.run.cancelled
  • workflow.run.timed_out
  • workflow.run.stale
  • workflow.run.action_required

GitLab Project

This connection type connects a GitLab project (e.g. https://gitlab.matrix.org/matrix-org/olm) to a room.

Setting up

To set up a connection to a GitLab project in a new room:

(NB you must have permission to bridge GitLab repositories before you can use this command, see auth.)

1. Create a new, unencrypted room. It can be public or private.
2. Invite the bridge bot (e.g. @hookshot:example.com).
3. Give the bridge bot moderator permissions or higher (power level 50) (or otherwise configure the room so the bot can edit room state).
4. Send the command !hookshot gitlab project https://mydomain/my/project.
5. If you have permission to bridge this repo, the bridge will respond with a confirmation message. (Users with Developer permissions or greater can bridge projects.)
6. If you have configured the bridge with a publicUrl inside gitlab.webhook in your config, you authenticated with Hookshot on that instance in your admin room, and you have Maintainer permissions or greater on the project, the bot will automatically provision the webhook for you.
7. Otherwise, you'll need to manually configure the project with a webhook that points to your public address for the webhooks listener, sets the "Secret token" to the one you put in your Hookshot configuration (gitlab.webhook.secret), and enables all Triggers that need to be bridged (as Hookshot can only bridge events for enabled Triggers). This can be configured on the GitLab webpage for the project under Settings > Webhook Settings. If you do not have access to this page, you must ask someone who does (i.e. someone with at least Maintainer permissions on the project) to add the webhook for you.

Configuration

This connection supports a few options which can be defined in the room state:

Supported event types

This connection supports sending messages when the following actions happen on the repository.

Note: Some of these event types are enabled by default (marked with a *). When ignoreHooks is defined, the events marked as default below will be enabled. Otherwise, this is ignored.

• merge_request *
  • merge_request.close *
  • merge_request.merge *
  • merge_request.open *
  • merge_request.reopen *
  • merge_request.review.comments *
  • merge_request.review *
  • merge_request.review.individual
• push *
• release *
  • release.created *
• tag_push *
• wiki *

JIRA Project

This connection type connects a JIRA project to a room.

You can run commands to create and assign issues, and receive notifications when issues are created.

Setting up

To set up a connection to a JIRA project in a new room:

(NB you must have permission to bridge JIRA projects before you can use this command, see auth.)

1. Create a new, unencrypted room. It can be public or private.
2. Invite the bridge bot (e.g. @hookshot:example.com).
3. Give the bridge bot moderator permissions or higher (power level 50) (or otherwise configure the room so the bot can edit room state).
4. Send the command !hookshot jira project https://jira-instance/.../projects/PROJECTKEY/....
5. If you have permission to bridge this repo, the bridge will respond with a confirmation message.

Managing connections

Send the command !hookshot jira list project to list all of a room's connections to JIRA projects.

Send the command !hookshot jira remove project <url> to remove a room's connection to a JIRA project at a given URL.

Configuration

This connection supports a few options which can be defined in the room state:

Supported event types

This connection supports sending messages when the following actions happen on the project.

• issue
  • issue_created
  • issue_updated
• version
  • version_created
  • version_updated
  • version_released

Prometheus Metrics

You can configure metrics support by adding the following to your config:

metrics:
  enabled: true
  bindAddress: 127.0.0.1
  port: 9002

Hookshot will then provide metrics on 127.0.0.1 at port 9002.

An example dashboard that can be used with Grafana can be found at /contrib/hookshot-dashboard.json. There are 3 variables at the top of the dashboard:

Select the Prometheus instance with your Hookshot metrics as Data Source. Set Interval to your scraping interval. Set 2x Interval to twice the Interval value (why?).

Below is the generated list of Prometheus metrics for Hookshot.

hookshot

matrix

feed

process

nodejs

Sentry

Hookshot supports Sentry error reporting.

You can configure Sentry by adding the following to your config:

sentry:
  dsn: https://examplePublicKey@o0.ingest.sentry.io/0 # The DSN for your Sentry project.
  environment: production # The environment sentry is being used in. Can be omitted.

Sentry will automatically include the name of your homeserver as the serverName reported.

Troubleshooting

If you are having difficulties getting set up with hookshot, the advice below might be able to resolve common issues.

If none of these help, please come chat to us in (#hookshot:half-shot.uk). Please try to follow these steps first, as live support is best effort.

1. The hookshot bot doesn't acknowledge an invite.

In 99% of cases, this is because the homeserver cannot reach the appservice. Synapse for example will log an error like:

synapse.http.client - 422 - INFO - as-recoverer-339 - Error sending request to  PUT http://yourhookshoturl/_matrix/app/v1/transactions/123: ConnectionRefusedError Connection refused
synapse.appservice.api - 405 - WARNING - as-recoverer-339 - push_bulk to http://yourhookshoturl threw exception(ConnectionRefusedError) Connection was refused by other side: 111: Connection refused. args=('Connection refused',)
synapse.appservice.scheduler - 480 - INFO - as-recoverer-339 - Scheduling retries on hookshot in Ns

It's hard to offer targeted advice on resolving networking issues, but a good thing to try is to check whether you can reach hookshot at all from the homeservers environment. For instance:

$ curl http://yourhookshoturl/_matrix/app/

should give you a response (even if it's an error).

Docker

It is also worth noting that if you are in a docker environment, the url in your registration YAML file must match the path Synapse expects to reach the service on. So if your container is called hookshot and it's configured to listen on port 9993, then you should configure the url to be http://hookshot:9993.

2. The bot joins, but doesn't respond to my messages.

Check that you are sending the right format message. !hookshot help should always work. Otherwise, check whether the room is encrypted and you haven't enabled encryption for the bot. The bot will ignore any messages in encrypted rooms.

You'll need to either create the room as unencrypted or enable encryption for the bot.

If this doesn't resolve your issue, check Problem #1 to make sure it's not a networking issue.

3. The bot works, but is offline in my client.

This is expected. Hookshot doesn't support "presence" which is how Matrix determines online/offline status.

Contributing

Matrix.org Bridges

Contributing

Hello there 👋. This contributing file is used amongst the matrix.org bridge repositories and should be followed when making any contribution. If you are reading this, that means you are going to be contributing to some free software, and that's great! Thank you!

🗨️ Getting in touch

As a Matrix-based project we use chat rooms heavily for coordinating work. When getting involved with an issue or pull request, feel free to reach out to us in one of the project rooms. The project room for the repository you are working on should be visible from the README.md file.

Be aware that by interacting with our Matrix rooms and/or GitHub repositories, you are agreeing to abide by the Matrix.org code of conduct.

✍️ Filing issues

We use the GitHub issue tracker for issue filing. A good issue can mean the difference between a quick fix and a long, painful fixing process. That's why the following guidelines exist:

• If you are reporting a bug:
  • Write a short title which neatly summaries the problem. Do not write the solution in the issue title. For example: Cannot create a nick with | in it is a good issue title. Filter nicks according to RFC 2812 is not a good issue title.
  • Give a summary and as much information (along with proposed solutions) as possible in the description of the issue.
  • Please either mention which version of the bridge you are using, or the commit hash.
• If it's a feature:
  • Your title should be a quick summary such as "Add ability to send encrypted files"
  • Your description should describe the outcome, not the solution.
    • For instance: "A function exists which can be used to send encrypted files to Matrix rooms".
    • Not: "There should be a MatrixClient.sendEncryptedFile() so the Foobar bridge can send encrypted images"

Issues will be categorised according to Synapse's rules. To summarise:

• Your issue will be catagorised as one of the following types by the maintainer team:
  • T-Defect: Bugs, crashes, hangs, vulnerabilities, or other reported problems.
  • T-Enhancement: New features, changes in functionality, performance boosts, user-facing improvements.
  • T-Documentation: Improvements or additions to documentation.
• You may have a severity assigned as an estimate to understand how bad the problem is and how many users are affected.

The assigned labels are at the maintainers' discretion, and we will make every effort to be transparent when triaging. We do not, as a rule, assign priority labeling to issues.

Contributing documentation

Documentation is important to us, as bridges are complex beasts and rely on good documentation for both administrators and users. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when when writing documentation for bridge projects:

• Use Plain English when documenting. Assume a non-native speaker audience.
• Please take care to proofread.
• Documentation should be written for both end users of the bridge, as well as system administrators. It should always be made clear in the text which class of user you are targeting.

Contributing code

First of all, thank you for considering making a change to one of our projects. Every change no matter the size makes a difference!

🖌️ Code style

Each repository contains an eslint configuration which will dictate the style of the code. All code should be written in TypeScript. At time of writing, we target ES2020 (the latest version supported by Node 14). The CI will lint your code automatically, but you can save yourself some time by running (yarn lint/npm lint) to check locally.

🧪 Tests / CI

To test your changes, you can run the test command with either yarn test or npm test. Some projects may have additional testing constraints noted in the project-specific section below.

Please be aware that reviewers will expect CI to be passing before your changes will be approved, and priority will be given to PRs that pass CI when reviewing too. If you can't get the CI to pass, please reach out to us either via the PR or in the project Matrix room (and do not assume that it's always your change that caused the test to fail!).

As a rule, code does not get merged onto the develop branch without all CI tests passing.

Tips for good quality submissions

• When writing new features, remember to document them in the repository's chosen documentation system.
• PRs should aim to be as constrained as possible: Do not attempt to solve multiple isolated issues in a single PR.
  • A good indication is that your changelog entry contains multiple statements. That usually means you need to consider splitting up your PR :)
• It's totally okay to submit draft PRs with the intention of getting feedback. Please use the GitHub comments feature to comment on lines you would like assistance with.
• Avoid writing TODOs / XXX comments in code. If you must, create an issue first with the details and link to it in the code.

⬇️ Pull Requests

When making a pull request, please ensure it [the PR] follows these best practises:

• Targets develop (unless it explicitly depends upon another feature, then depend on that branch and comment to that effect in the PR body).

• Is updated via rebase mechanisms when develop changes, rather than merge commits (reduces noise).

• Is signed off. Matrix.org projects require that the sign off process has been followed in its entirety.

• Has a changelog entry in changelog.d. A changelog filename should be ${GithubPRNumber}.{bugfix|misc|feature|doc|removal}. The change should include information that is useful to the user rather than the developer.

  You can choose to sign your changelog entry to be credited by appending something like "Thanks to @Half-Shot!" at the end of the file, on the same line.

  You may be wondering how to determine your GithubPRNumber number ahead of time. Synapse offers some useful hints for this.

• Is passing CI. As noted above, please feel free to call out any CI issues you cannot fix.

• Calls out any issue it may fix with a "Fixes #issue-no" in the body.

When PRs are merged, we will squash the commits down to a single commit. Because of this, do not be afraid to make multiple commits to a branch rather than amending and force pushing existing commits.

We aim to review all PRs in a timely manner, though be aware that larger PRs will take more thought.

✔️ Review process

We aim to review all PRs from the community promptly, although we can't offer firm time commitments. If you think your PR has been forgotten and it's been a while, do not hesitate to politely ping in the correct project room.

When reviewing a PR, a maintainer will:

• Constructively call out areas for improvement. Code reviews are as much about learning as getting code good, so conversations always seek to improve mutual understanding.
• Resolve a comment thread when they are satisfied. The author of the code may 👍 a review comment to say they have acknowledged the message and will make the change.
• Approve a PR which is ready to merge, or nearly ready with some minor tweaks or optional improvements.

🏁 That's it!

This guide aims to cover all bases to get new contributors started, but it won't be able to satisfy every question. If you have any other questions, please seek us out in any of the project rooms and we will be happy to assist! Other than that, thanks for taking the time to read this and improving our projects for the benefit of all 😄

Hookshot

Hi there! Please read the CONTRIBUTING.md guide for all matrix.org bridge projects.

Hookshot Guidelines

• Hookshot presently uses the main branch as the default branch (instead of develop).
• Since Hookshot caters to a range of services, we have additional tags such as GitHub, GitLab which help us determine which services are affected by an issue.
• In addition to Typescript, Hookshot makes use of Rust. You will need to setup Rust in order to build the project. https://rustup.rs/ is a good option for most people.
• The official hookshot support/development room is #hookshot:half-shot.uk

Provisioning

This section is not complete yet for end users. For developers, you can read the documentation for the API below:

Provisioning API for matrix-hookshot

Overview

This document describes how to integrate with matrix-hookshot's provisioning API.

Requests made to the bridge must be against the API listener defined in the config under provisioning, not the appservice or webhook listeners.

Requests should always be authenticated with the secret given in the config, inside the Authorization header. Requests being made on behalf of users (most provisioning APIs) should include the userId as a query parameter.

GET /v1/health?userId=%40Half-Shot%3Ahalf-shot.uk
Authorization: Bearer secret

APIs are versioned independently so two endpoints on the latest version may not always have the same version.

APIs

GET /v1/health

Request the status of the provisioning API.

Response

HTTP 200
{}

Any other response should be considered a failed request (e.g. 404, 502 etc).

GET /v1/connectiontypes

Request the connection types enabled for this bridge.

Response

{
    "JiraProject": {
        "type": "JiraProject", // The name of the connection
        "eventType": "uk.half-shot.matrix-hookshot.jira.project", // Corresponds to the state type for the connection
        "service": "jira", // or github, webhook. A human-readable service name to make things look pretty
        "botUserId": "@hookshot:yourdomain.com", // The bot mxid for the service. Currently, this is the sender_localpart, but may change in the future.
    }
}

GET /v1/{roomId}/connections

Request the connections for a given room. The {roomId} parameter is the target Matrix room.

Response

[{
    "type": "JiraProject", // The name of the connection
    "eventType": "uk.half-shot.matrix-hookshot.jira.project", // Corresponds to the state type in the connection
    "id": "opaque-unique-id", // An opaque ID used to refer to this connection. Should **NOT** be assumed to be stable.
    "service": "jira", // or github, webhook. A human-readable service name to make things look pretty
    "botUserId": "@hookshot:yourdomain.com", // The bot mxid for the service. Currently, this is the sender_localpart, but may change in the future.
    "config": {
        // ... connection specific details, can be configured.
    }
}]

GET /v1/{roomId}/connections/{id}

Request details of a single connection. The {roomId} parameter is the target Matrix room.

Response

{
    "type": "JiraProject", // The name of the connection
    "eventType": "uk.half-shot.matrix-hookshot.jira.project", // Corresponds to the state type in the connection
    "id": "opaque-unique-id", // An opaque ID used to refer to this connection. Should **NOT** be assumed to be stable.
    "service": "jira", // or github, webhook. A human-readable service name to make things look pretty
    "botUserId": "@hookshot:yourdomain.com", // The bot mxid for the service. Currently, this is the sender_localpart, but may change in the future.
    "config": {
        // ... connection specific details, can be configured.
    }
}

PUT /v1/{roomId}/connections/{type}

Create a new connection of a given type. The type refers to the eventType (IConnection.CanonicalEventType). The {roomId} parameter is the target Matrix room.

The body of the request is the configuration for the connection, which will be the "ConnectionState" interface for each connection.

Request body

{
    // ... connection specific details, can be configured.
}

Response

{
    "type": "JiraProject", // The name of the connection
    "eventType": "uk.half-shot.matrix-hookshot.jira.project", // Corresponds to the state type in the connection
    "id": "opaque-unique-id", // An opaque ID used to refer to this connection. Should **NOT** be assumed to be stable.
    "service": "jira", // or github, webhook. A human-readable service name to make things look pretty
    "botUserId": "@hookshot:yourdomain.com", // The bot mxid for the service. Currently, this is the sender_localpart, but may change in the future.
    "config": {
        // ... connection specific details, can be configured.
    }
}

PATCH /v1/{roomId}/connections/{id}

Update a connection's configuration. The id refers to the id returned in the GET response.

The body of the request is the configuration for the connection, which will be the "ConnectionState" interface for each connection.

Request body

{
    // ... connection specific details, can be configured.
}

Response

{

    "type": "JiraProject", // The name of the connection
    "eventType": "uk.half-shot.matrix-hookshot.jira.project", // Corresponds to the state type in the connection
    "id": "opaque-unique-id", // An opaque ID used to refer to this connection. Should **NOT** be assumed to be stable.
    "service": "jira", // or github, webhook. A human-readable service name to make things look pretty
    "botUserId": "@hookshot:yourdomain.com", // The bot mxid for the service. Currently, this is the sender_localpart, but may change in the future.
    "config": {
        // ... connection specific details, can be configured.
    }
}

DELETE /v1/{roomId}/connections/{id}

Delete a connection. The id refers to the id returned in the GET response.

Response

{
    "ok": true
}

Service specific APIs

Some services have specific APIs for additional functionality, like OAuth.

GitHub

GET /v1/github/oauth?userId={userId}

Request an OAuth url for the given user. Once the user has completed the steps in the OAuth process, the bridge will be granted access.

Response

[{
    "user_url": "https://github.com/login/oauth/authorize?...",
    "org_url": "https://github.com/apps/matrix-bridge/installations/new",
}]

GET /v1/github/account?userId={userId}

Request the status of the users account. This will return a loggedIn value to determine if the bridge has a GitHub identity stored for the user, and any organisations they have access to.

Response

{
    "loggedIn": true,
    "organisations":[{
        "name": "half-shot",
        "avatarUrl": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/8418310?v=4"
    }]
}

GET /v1/github/orgs/{orgName}/repositories?userId={userId}&page={page}&perPage={perPage}

Request a list of all repositories a user is a member of in the given org. The owner and name value of a repository can be given to create a new GitHub connection.

This request is paginated, and page sets the page (defaults to 1) while perPage (defaults to 10) sets the number of entries per page.

This request can be retried until the number of entries is less than the value of perPage.

Response

{
    "loggedIn": true,
    "repositories":[{
        "name": "matrix-hookshot",
        "owner": "matrix-org",
        "fullName": "matrix-org/matrix-hookshot",
        "avatarUrl": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/8418310?v=4",
        "description": "A bridge between Matrix and multiple project management services, such as GitHub, GitLab and JIRA. "
    }]
}

GET /v1/github/repositories?userId={userId}&page={page}&perPage={perPage}

Request a list of all repositories a user is a member of (including those not belonging to an org). The owner and name value of a repository can be given to create a new GitHub connection.

If the user has only allowed a subset of repositories to be bridged, changeSelectionUrl will be defined and can be used to expand the search query.

This request is paginated, and page sets the page (defaults to 1) while perPage (defaults to 10) sets the number of entries per page.

This request can be retried until the number of entries is less than the value of perPage.

Response

{
    "loggedIn": true,
    "changeSelectionUrl": "https://github.com/settings/installations/12345",
    "repositories":[{
        "name": "matrix-hookshot",
        "owner": "matrix-org",
        "fullName": "matrix-org/matrix-hookshot",
        "avatarUrl": "https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/8418310?v=4",
        "description": "A bridge between Matrix and multiple project management services, such as GitHub, GitLab and JIRA. "
    }]
}

JIRA

GET /v1/jira/oauth?userId={userId}

Request an OAuth url for the given user. Once the user has completed the steps in the OAuth process, the bridge will be granted access.

Response

{
    "url": "https://auth.atlassian.com/authorize?..."
}

GET /v1/jira/account?userId={userId}

Request the status of the users account. This will return a loggedIn value to determine if the bridge has a JIRA identity stored for the user, and any instances they have access to. Note that if a user does not have access to an instance, they can authenticate again to gain access to it (if they are able to consent).

Response

{
    "loggedIn": true,
    "instances":[{
        "name": "acme",
        "url": "https://acme.atlassian.net"
    }]
}

GET /v1/jira/instances/{instanceName}/projects?userId={userId}

Request a list of all projects a user can see in a given instance. The url value of a project can be given to create a new JIRA connection.

Response

[{
    "key": "PLAY",
    "name": "Jira Playground",
    "url": "https://acme.atlassian.net/projects/PLAY"
}]

Workers

Hookshot supports running in a worker configuration, using Redis as the middleman process to handle traffic between processes.

Running in multi-process mode

You must first have a working Redis instance somewhere which can talk between processes. For example, in Docker you can run:

docker run --name redis-host -p 6379:6379 -d redis.

The processes should all share the same config, which should contain the correct config to enable Redis:

queue:
  redisUri: "redis://redis-host:6379"
cache:
  redisUri: "redis://redis-host:6379"

Note that if encryption is enabled, you MUST enable the cache config but NOT the queue config. Workers require persistent storage in Redis, but cannot make use of worker-mode queues.

Once that is done, you can simply start the processes by name using yarn:

yarn start:webhooks
yarn start:matrixsender
yarn start:app

Be aware that you will need to start all worker types when running in worker mode, as the service does not allow a hybrid worker approach.

Encryption

Enabling encryption in Hookshot

In order for Hookshot to use encryption, it must be configured as follows:

• The encryption.storagePath setting must point to a directory that Hookshot has permissions to write files into. If running with Docker, this path should be within a volume (for persistency). Hookshot uses this directory for its crypto store (i.e. long-lived state relating to its encryption keys).
  • Once a crypto store has been initialized, its files must not be modified, and Hookshot cannot be configured to use another crypto store of the same type as one it has used before. If a crypto store's files get lost or corrupted, Hookshot may fail to start up, or may be unable to decrypt command messages. To fix such issues, stop Hookshot, then reset its crypto store by running yarn start:resetcrypto.
• Redis must be enabled. Note that worker mode is not yet supported with encryption, so queue MUST NOT be configured.

If you ever reset your homeserver's state, ensure you also reset Hookshot's encryption state. This includes clearing the storagePath directory and all worker state stored in your redis instance. Otherwise, Hookshot may fail on start up with registration errors.

Also ensure that Hookshot's appservice registration file contains every line from registration.sample.yml that appears after the If enabling encryption comment. Note that changing the registration file may require restarting the homeserver that Hookshot is connected to.

Running with Synapse

Synapse has functional support for MSC3202 and MSC4203 as of v1.63.0. To enable it, add the following section to Synapse's configuration file (typically named homeserver.yaml):

You may notice that MSC2409 is not listed above. Due to the changes being split out from MSC2409, msc2409_to_device_messages_enabled refers to MSC4203.

experimental_features:
  msc3202_device_masquerading: true
  msc3202_transaction_extensions: true
  msc2409_to_device_messages_enabled: true

Widgets

Hookshot supports using widgets to configure connections in rooms. Widgets allow users to view and configure rooms without the need to type commands. The widget feature is designed to complement the existing command system, rather than replace it.

Configuration

widgets:
  addToAdminRooms: false
  roomSetupWidget:
    addOnInvite: false
# disallowedIpRanges:
#     - 127.0.0.0/8
#     - 10.0.0.0/8
#     - 172.16.0.0/12
#     - 192.168.0.0/16
#     - 100.64.0.0/10
#     - 192.0.0.0/24
#     - 169.254.0.0/16
#     - 192.88.99.0/24
#     - 198.18.0.0/15
#     - 192.0.2.0/24
#     - 198.51.100.0/24
#     - 203.0.113.0/24
#     - 224.0.0.0/4
#     - ::1/128
#     - fe80::/10
#     - fc00::/7
#     - 2001:db8::/32
#     - ff00::/8
#     - fec0::/10
  publicUrl: https://example.com/widgetapi/v1/static
  branding:
    widgetTitle: Hookshot Configuration
  openIdOverrides:
    my-local-server: "http://localhost"

The admin room feature is still very barebones so while it's included here for completeness, most instances should leave addToAdminRooms off (as it is by default). This flag will add an "admin room" widget to user admin rooms.

The room setup feature is more complete, supporting generic webhook configuration (with more options coming soon). This can be enabled by setting roomSetupWidget to an object. You can add the widget by saying !hookshot setup-widget in any room. When addOnInvite is true, the bridge will add a widget to rooms when the bot is invited, and the room has no existing connections.

disallowedIpRanges describes which IP ranges should be disallowed when resolving homeserver IP addresses (for security reasons). Unless you know what you are doing, it is recommended to not include this key. The default blocked IPs are listed above for your convenience.

publicUrl should be set to the publicly reachable address for the widget public content. By default, Hookshot hosts this content on the widgets listener under /widgetapi/v1/static.

branding allows you to change the strings used for various bits of widget UI. At the moment you can:

• Set widgetTitle to change the title of the widget that is created.

openIdOverrides allows you to configure the correct federation endpoints for a given set of Matrix server names. This is useful if you are testing/developing Hookshot in a local dev environment. Production environments should not use this configuration (as their Matrix server name should be resolvable). The config takes a mapping of Matrix server name => base path for federation. E.g. if your server name was my-local-server and your federation was readable via http://localhost/_matrix/federation, you would put configure my-local-server: "http://localhost".

In addition to setting up the widgets config, you must bind a listener for the widgets resource in your listeners config.

listeners:
  - port: 5069
    bindAddress: 0.0.0.0
    resources:
      - widgets

See the setup page for more information on listeners.

API

The API for widgets is currently in flux due to being fairly new, and it's not recommended to develop against it at this time. At a future date this API will be merged with the existing provisioning API and the details will be published.

Service Bots

Hookshot supports additional bot users called "service bots" which handle a particular connection type (in addition to the default bot user which can handle any connection type). These bots can coexist in a room, each handling a different service.

Configuration

Service bots can be given a different localpart, display name, avatar, and command prefix.
They will only handle connections for the specified service, which can be one of:

• feeds - Feeds
• figma - Figma
• generic - Webhooks
• github - GitHub
• gitlab - GitLab
• jira - Jira

For example with this configuration:

serviceBots:
  - localpart: feeds
    displayname: Feeds
    avatar: "./assets/feeds_avatar.png"
    prefix: "!feeds"
    service: feeds

There will be a bot user @feeds:example.com which responds to commands prefixed with !feeds, and only handles feeds connections.

For the homeserver to allow hookshot control over users, they need to be added to the list of user namespaces in the registration.yml file provided to the homeserver.

In the example above, you would need to add these lines:

    - regex: "@feeds:example.com" # Where example.com is your homeserver's domain
      exclusive: true