kb-fediverse-actor-statuses

Fediverse Actor Statuses (FEP-82f6) — Complete Reference

Overview

FEP-82f6 (authored by Gregory Klyushnikov / grishka, received 2025-05-12, status DRAFT — finalization expected ~2026-03-18) describes an ActivityPub extension that allows actors to publish a short status text on their profile, with optional expiration, structured metadata attachment, and history.

The feature replicates a well-known UX pattern from centralized platforms: early Facebook "is..." statuses (2006–2009), VKontakte taglines, Discord custom statuses, and GitHub profile statuses. These are distinct from regular posts — they cannot be interacted with (no likes, replies, boosts), cannot contain media attachments, and have a short character limit.

The proposal originates from Smithereen, a federated social network modeled after VKontakte, which already implements this feature. The JSON-LD namespace http://smithereen.software/ns# (prefix sm:) reflects this origin.

---

1. The ActorStatus Object

ActorStatus extends the ActivityPub Object type. It represents a single status update.

Required Fields

Field	Description
id	Unique identifier for this status update
attributedTo	ID of the actor whose status this is
content	Plain text content of the status
published	Timestamp when the status was created

Optional Fields

Field	Description
endTime	Timestamp when the status expires. If present and in the past, implementations MUST NOT display this status
attachment	Structured metadata about what the actor is doing (e.g., a song, a video game). If present, content MUST contain a fallback human-readable plain text representation

Example

{
  "type": "ActorStatus",
  "id": "https://example.social/users/1/statuses/1747286633",
  "attributedTo": "https://example.social/users/1",
  "content": "is desperately trying to bring the old internet back",
  "published": "2025-05-15T05:23:53.539Z",
  "@context": [
    "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
    {
      "sm": "http://smithereen.software/ns#",
      "ActorStatus": "sm:ActorStatus"
    }
  ]
}

Example with Expiration

{
  "type": "ActorStatus",
  "id": "https://example.social/users/1/statuses/1747300000",
  "attributedTo": "https://example.social/users/1",
  "content": "at a conference until Friday",
  "published": "2025-05-15T09:00:00.000Z",
  "endTime": "2025-05-16T18:00:00.000Z"
}

Example with Attachment (Now-Playing)

{
  "type": "ActorStatus",
  "id": "https://example.social/users/1/statuses/1747350000",
  "attributedTo": "https://example.social/users/1",
  "content": "Radiohead — Everything In Its Right Place",
  "published": "2025-05-15T12:00:00.000Z",
  "attachment": {
    "type": "Audio",
    "name": "Everything In Its Right Place",
    "attributedTo": "Radiohead"
  }
}

The content field MUST contain a human-readable fallback so servers that don't understand the structured attachment can still display meaningful text.

---

2. Actor Fields

Two OPTIONAL fields are added to actor objects:

status

The current status update. Rules:

• MUST NOT be present if the last status has expired or been cleared
• MUST contain an inlined ActorStatus object (not a reference/link)
• When present, it is always current and non-expired — consumers can rely on this

{
  "type": "Person",
  "id": "https://example.social/users/1",
  "name": "Alice",
  "status": {
    "type": "ActorStatus",
    "id": "https://example.social/users/1/statuses/1747286633",
    "attributedTo": "https://example.social/users/1",
    "content": "is desperately trying to bring the old internet back",
    "published": "2025-05-15T05:23:53.539Z"
  }
}

statusHistory

A collection of all past status updates. Behavior:

• If present, implementations MAY provide a UI to view the actor's status history (similar to early Facebook's status timeline)
• If absent, implementations SHOULD NOT store past status updates and MUST NOT expose them in the UI
• The presence or absence of this collection signals to remote servers whether the actor supports status history

---

3. Activities

Create — Set a New Status

Send Create{ActorStatus} to followers.

{
  "type": "Create",
  "actor": "https://example.social/users/1",
  "object": {
    "type": "ActorStatus",
    "id": "https://example.social/users/1/statuses/1747286633",
    "attributedTo": "https://example.social/users/1",
    "content": "is desperately trying to bring the old internet back",
    "published": "2025-05-15T05:23:53.539Z"
  },
  "to": "https://example.social/users/1/followers"
}

Upon receiving:

• Update the actor's current status
• If the actor has statusHistory, add the new status to it
• If the actor does NOT have statusHistory, the previous status is considered deleted (as if Deleted)

After sending, the status field on the actor object MUST be updated. An Update{Actor} MUST NOT be sent — the Create already implicitly updates the status field on remote servers.

Remove — Clear Status from Profile

Send Remove{ActorStatus} to followers.

{
  "type": "Remove",
  "actor": "https://example.social/users/1",
  "object": "https://example.social/users/1/statuses/1747286633",
  "to": "https://example.social/users/1/followers"
}

Upon receiving:

• If the object ID matches the actor's current status, clear it
• If the actor has statusHistory, the status stays in history
• The actor's status field becomes absent

Delete — Completely Remove a Status

Send Delete{ActorStatus} to followers.

{
  "type": "Delete",
  "actor": "https://example.social/users/1",
  "object": "https://example.social/users/1/statuses/1747286633",
  "to": "https://example.social/users/1/followers"
}

Upon receiving:

• Remove the status from statusHistory as well as clearing from profile
• If the actor has no statusHistory, this is identical to Remove

No Update Allowed

Once published, a status object cannot be Updated. This is a deliberate design decision — if the user wants a different status, they create a new one.

No Interactions

Statuses cannot be interacted with. Implementations:

• SHOULD NOT send any activities (Like, Announce, etc.) referring to statuses as their object from non-owner actors
• MUST either ignore such activities (return 2xx) or reject them (return 4xx)

---

4. Remove vs Delete Semantics

The spec makes a deliberate distinction:

Activity	Profile	History	Use case
Remove	Cleared	Kept (if statusHistory exists)	"I'm done with this status, but it's part of my history"
Delete	Cleared	Removed	"I want this status to no longer exist anywhere"
Remove (no history)	Cleared	N/A	Identical to Delete when statusHistory is absent

This mirrors the Facebook/VK pattern where statuses accumulate in a timeline. Users can either move past them (they become history) or delete them entirely.

---

5. JSON-LD Context

{
  "@context": [
    "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
    {
      "sm": "http://smithereen.software/ns#",
      "ActorStatus": "sm:ActorStatus",
      "status": {
        "@type": "@id",
        "@id": "sm:status"
      },
      "statusHistory": {
        "@type": "@id",
        "@id": "sm:statusHistory"
      }
    }
  ]
}

The namespace http://smithereen.software/ns# originates from the Smithereen project. ActorStatus is equivalent to http://smithereen.software/ns#ActorStatus — they are the same type expressed with and without the namespace prefix.

---

6. Character Limit

• Implementations MUST support statuses of up to 100 characters or emoji
• Implementations MAY allow longer statuses, but they MAY be truncated on the receiving side depending on display and storage constraints
• RECOMMENDED: apply a 100-character limit in the user-facing text input, but be more permissive when processing status updates from other servers

---

7. Comparison with Centralized Platform Statuses

Platform	Feature	Interactable?	Media?	Limit	History?
Early Facebook (2006–2009)	"is..." status	No	No	Very short	Yes
VKontakte	Status/tagline	No	No	Short	Yes
Discord	Custom status	No	Emoji only	128 chars	No
GitHub	Custom status	No	Emoji only	Short	No
Slack	Custom status	No	Emoji only	100 chars	No
FEP-82f6	ActorStatus	No	Attachment metadata	100+ chars	Optional

No existing Fediverse platform has a standardized actor status feature. Smithereen is the only known implementation.

---

8. Design Philosophy

The author's design philosophy is distinctive and worth understanding for implementers:

One FEP = One UX Pattern

"This FEP serves one particular UX use case and only that. Nothing less, nothing more." The proposal does not try to be a general-purpose mechanism. It captures a specific, well-understood UI pattern.

Clean Compatibility Break

"A clean compatibility break with all preexisting software is an explicit goal." Rather than reusing existing mechanisms (like the featured collection) for partial backward compatibility, the proposal introduces a new type that servers either understand or don't. This avoids ambiguous degradation where a status might misleadingly appear as a pinned post.

UI-to-Protocol Mapping

"I simply translated the actions that the user can take in the UI to AP activities, one-to-one." Each user action maps directly to one Activity type:

User action	Activity
Set status	Create{ActorStatus}
Clear status	Remove{ActorStatus}
Delete status	Delete{ActorStatus}

No side effects, no indirect mechanisms (like using Update with endTime changes to clear a status).

---

9. Why Certain Alternatives Were Rejected

Why Not Use the featured Collection?

silverpill suggested placing ActorStatus in featured for partial compatibility. Rejected because:

• Mixing different object types in one collection causes database and UI complexity
• A clean break is preferred over a status misleadingly appearing as a pinned post
• featured has different semantics (showcase content vs. current state)

Why No Update Activity?

silverpill proposed Update{ActorStatus} setting endTime to a past date to clear statuses. Rejected because:

• It replaces an obvious action (Remove) with a non-obvious one (Update with a side effect)
• It opens the door to restoring expired statuses by resetting endTime to a future date
• The Remove activity directly and transparently maps to the user action of clearing a status

Why No Interactions?

SorteKanin asked why statuses can't have likes, replies, images, or long text. Rejected because adding these features would make statuses overlap with regular posts (Note objects) and lose the distinct UX identity that makes them useful.

---

10. Implementation Guidance

Sending a Status Update

1. Create an ActorStatus object with id, attributedTo, content, published, and optionally endTime and/or attachment
2. Send Create{ActorStatus} to the actor's followers
3. Update the actor's status field with the new status
4. Do NOT send Update{Actor} — the Create implicitly updates remote copies

Receiving a Status Update

1. On Create{ActorStatus}: update the actor's displayed status. If you track history and the actor has statusHistory, add to it. If no statusHistory, discard the previous status.
2. On Remove{ActorStatus}: if the object ID matches the current status, clear it. Keep in history if applicable.
3. On Delete{ActorStatus}: clear from profile AND remove from history.
4. Ignore any other activities (Like, Announce, etc.) targeting statuses.

Displaying Statuses

• Show on the actor's profile page
• Optionally show next to the actor's name in feeds, comments, etc.
• If endTime is present and in the past, do NOT display
• If statusHistory is available, optionally provide a UI to browse it

Handling the Attachment Field

The attachment field carries structured metadata (e.g., a song, a game). If you can render it richly (album art, game icon), do so. If not, the content field already contains a plain text fallback — just display that.

---

11. Known Issues and Considerations

• Single implementation: Smithereen is the only known implementation. The sm: namespace reflects this single-origin status. Adoption by other platforms would validate the design.
• No standard attachment types: The spec does not define specific attachment schemas for now-playing, gaming, etc. Implementers must define their own structured formats or wait for community conventions.
• Expiration timing: Implementations must actively check endTime and stop displaying expired statuses. There is no push notification for expiration — it's poll-based on the endTime value.
• No Update: If a user makes a typo in their status, they must create a new one rather than editing. This is intentional but may surprise users accustomed to editing posts.
• History privacy: The statusHistory collection is visible to "anyone who can see the actor itself." There is no mechanism for private or followers-only status history.