The write-policy plugin

Summary. All Floonet policy in floonet-strfry lives in one small, documented write-policy plugin: kind whitelist first, then auth, then the paid gate, then the name-authority consult. strfry core stays stock. Rejections are fail-closed.

How strfry plugins work

strfry’s intended extension point is the write policy (relay.writePolicy.plugin in strfry.conf; upstream docs in strfry/docs/plugins.md, implementation in src/PluginEventSifter.h). For every incoming event, strfry writes a JSON object to the plugin’s stdin, including the event (with its kind) and, when NIP-42 is enabled, the authed pubkey of the connection. The plugin answers with one of:

• accept: store the event.
• reject: refuse, with a message the client sees.
• shadowReject: refuse silently; the client thinks it succeeded.

The Floonet plugin

The Floonet plugin is a small program structured as a chain of pluggable checks, each with its own config:

1. Kind whitelist (the keystone). kind must be in ALLOWED_KINDS, or the event is shadow-rejected. This check runs first and cannot be disabled.
2. Auth, when enabled: require an authed pubkey, or require membership in a pubkey whitelist.
3. Paid gate, when FLOONET_PAY_MODE=write: the authed pubkey must have a confirmed GoblinPay payment on record. Results are cached with a TTL so the plugin does not call GoblinPay on every event.
4. Name authority consult, for policies that depend on name state.

Fail-closed is the invariant across all checks: malformed input, an unreachable config, or an errored check means reject, never accept.

Extending it

The plugin is meant to be edited by operators:

• Add a kind: edit ALLOWED_KINDS and restart. No code.
• Add a policy: add a check function to the chain; each check receives the event and the authed pubkey and returns accept, reject, or pass-to-next.
• Replace it entirely: point relay.writePolicy.plugin at your own program; the stdin/stdout contract is all there is.

References

• The whitelist rationale: The whitelist: default deny.
• The paid gate: Paid names via GoblinPay.
• strfry plugin docs: https://github.com/hoytech/strfry/blob/master/docs/plugins.md.