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Matrix Integration

MindRoom uses the Matrix protocol for all agent communication. The integration is implemented in src/mindroom/matrix/.

Why Matrix?

  • Federated - Connect to any Matrix homeserver
  • Bridgeable - Bridge to Discord, Slack, Telegram, and more
  • Open - Open standard and open-source implementations
  • End-to-End Encryption - Secure communication with encrypted room support

Matrix Client

MindRoom uses mindroom-nio for Matrix communication with SSL context handling and encryption key storage.

Environment Variables

Variable Default Description
MATRIX_HOMESERVER http://localhost:8008 Matrix homeserver URL
MATRIX_SERVER_NAME (from homeserver) Federation server name
MATRIX_SSL_VERIFY true Set to false for dev/self-signed certs

Streaming behavior is configured in config.yaml with defaults.enable_streaming (default: true).

Agent Users

Each agent, team, and router has its own Matrix user.

The configured alias is the user-facing runtime handle, such as @assistant in chat.

Provisioning may request localparts such as mindroom_assistant or mindroom_router, but persisted Matrix state is authoritative after provisioning and may contain a different username.

For example, a persisted Matrix account such as @assistant_live:example.com can become the live assistant account even if the original provisioning request used mindroom_assistant.

Users are automatically created during orchestrator startup and credentials are persisted in mindroom_data/matrix_state.yaml.

Room Management

Agents can join existing rooms, create new rooms with AI-generated topics, respond to invites automatically, leave unconfigured rooms, and set room avatars.

Rooms are auto-created via _ensure_room_exists() (private) and ensure_all_rooms_exist() (public). DM rooms can be detected with async is_dm_room(client, room_id) -> bool.

Threading (MSC3440)

MindRoom emits thread replies following MSC3440, using m.relates_to with rel_type: m.thread.

Explicit m.thread metadata remains the primary source of thread conversation context. For clients or bridges that send plain replies without thread metadata (m.in_reply_to but no rel_type: m.thread), MindRoom applies a transitive compatibility rule. If a reply chain eventually reaches explicit thread T or a proven thread root, MindRoom treats the new reply as part of T. Replies that never reach threaded context stay room-level.

Resolution Rules

When deriving context for an incoming event, MindRoom:

  1. Uses explicit m.thread relations as the primary inbound thread identity.
  2. Lets plain replies inherit thread membership transitively when their reply chain reaches a threaded ancestor or proven thread root.
  3. Lets edits, reactions, redactions, and other target-bound operations inherit the canonical thread membership of their target event.
  4. May start a new thread under a room-root event when agent thread mode requires it.
├── User: @assistant help with this code
│   ├── Assistant: I can help! Let me look at it...
│   ├── User: It should return a list
│   └── Assistant: Here's the updated version...

Use build_message_content() from message_builder.py to construct thread-aware messages, and EventInfo.from_event() to analyze event relations (threads, edits, replies, reactions).

Message Flow

Sync Loop

Each agent bot runs its own sync loop with 30-second long-polling timeout. Sync loops are wrapped with sync_forever_with_restart() for automatic restart on connection failures.

Events are processed in background tasks: 1. Sync receives event via long-polling 2. Event callback triggered (_on_message, _on_invite, etc.) 3. Background task created for async processing 4. Agent responds in thread

Streaming Responses

Agents stream responses by progressively editing messages. Streaming is enabled only when the requesting user is online (checked via should_use_streaming()), saving API calls for offline users. See Streaming Responses for the full feature documentation.

Tool call telemetry is emitted as plain inline markers and mirrored in io.mindroom.tool_trace metadata on the same message content.

Marker format: 

🔧 `tool_name` [N] ⏳     ← pending
🔧 `tool_name` [N]        ← completed

Where N is 1-indexed per message and maps to io.mindroom.tool_trace.events[N-1].

Presence

Agents set their Matrix presence with status messages containing model and role information (e.g., "🤖 Model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 | 💼 Code assistant | 🔧 5 tools available").

Presence States: - online - Agent running and ready - unavailable - Agent idle but connected (treated as online for streaming) - offline - Agent stopped or disconnected

Typing Indicators

Agents show typing indicators while processing via typing_indicator() context manager. The indicator auto-refreshes at min(timeout/2, 15) seconds to remain visible during long operations.

Mentions

Mentions are parsed via format_message_with_mentions() which handles multiple formats: - @calculator - Stable configured agent or team key - @actual_calculator:localhost - Current full Matrix ID

Bare Matrix account localparts such as @actual_calculator are not runtime handles. A generated-looking full Matrix ID such as @mindroom_calculator:localhost is not a runtime handle unless it is the current persisted Matrix ID for that agent or team.

Returns content with m.mentions and formatted_body containing clickable links.

Large Messages

Messages exceeding the 64KB Matrix event limit are automatically handled by prepare_large_message():

  • Messages > 55,000 bytes and edits > 27,000 bytes use a fallback event
  • Full original Matrix message content is uploaded as a JSON sidecar (message-content.json)
  • Preview text included in message body (maximum that fits)
  • Custom metadata dict io.mindroom.long_text contains version: 2, encoding: "matrix_event_content_json", original and preview sizes, and a completeness flag
  • Preview event is compact (for example no inline io.mindroom.tool_trace), while the sidecar preserves full content fidelity
  • Encrypted rooms: sidecar JSON is encrypted before upload (message-content.json.enc)

Response Tracking

MindRoom prevents duplicate responses using a ResponseTracker that records which events have already been processed. When a sync reconnection or retry delivers the same event twice, the tracker suppresses the duplicate so only one agent response is sent per triggering message. Tracking state is persisted under mindroom_data/tracking/ and survives restarts.

Room Cleanup

On startup, MindRoom detects orphaned bot memberships left over from a previous configuration. When an agent is removed from config.yaml, its Matrix bot account may still be a member of rooms it previously joined. The cleanup process leaves those rooms safely without ejecting currently configured entities from their required rooms. This runs automatically — no manual intervention is needed.

Identity Management

The MatrixID class handles Matrix user ID parsing. Runtime entity resolution uses the persisted identity registry, keyed by configured alias:

mid = MatrixID.parse("@assistant_live:example.com")
mid.username  # "assistant_live"
mid.domain    # "example.com"
mid.full_id   # "@assistant_live:example.com"

# Resolve the current persisted Matrix ID for a configured alias
registry = entity_identity_registry(config, runtime_paths)
assistant_id = registry.current_id("assistant")
agent_name = registry.current_entity_name_for_user_id(assistant_id.full_id)

Root Space

MindRoom can create and maintain a root Matrix Space that groups all managed rooms.

matrix_space:
  enabled: true        # Default: true
  name: MindRoom       # Display name for the Space

When enabled, ensure_root_space() creates the Space on first boot (or resolves an existing one by alias), links all managed rooms as children, and sets the Space avatar from workspace or bundled assets. The Space name is reconciled on each startup to match the configured value. Root Space admin power is granted before child links are written. The grant set is the concrete Matrix users in authorization.global_users plus the configured mindroom_user when that internal account exists. MindRoom does not remove existing Space admins during reconciliation, including manual Matrix admins or users removed from authorization.global_users. Room-scoped authorization entries are intentionally not used for root Space admin grants.

Delivery Policy

Outgoing encrypted Matrix sends keep nio's device-trust checks enabled by default.

matrix_delivery:
  ignore_unverified_devices: false

Operators can set matrix_delivery.ignore_unverified_devices to true when bot delivery should proceed even if encrypted rooms contain unverified devices. This is a security tradeoff because Matrix may encrypt outgoing events for devices the bot has not verified.

Configuration

Matrix settings are derived from config.yaml:

agents:
  assistant:
    rooms: [lobby, dev]  # Room aliases (auto-created if needed)

teams:
  research_team:
    rooms: [research]

Room aliases are resolved to room IDs automatically. Full room IDs (starting with !) are also supported.

When a room doesn't exist, it's created with an AI-generated topic, power users are invited, and managed avatars are resolved from workspace overrides or bundled defaults if available.