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Feature: @mentions support #4

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Description

@melvincarvalho

Summary

Add support for @mentioning users in chat messages.

Context from Solid Chat Spec

The official spec currently:

  • Uses foaf:maker for message authors (WebID URIs)
  • Uses sioc:content for message text
  • Does not define an explicit @mention system

Proposed Implementation

1. Syntax in sioc:content

Parse message content for @username or @WebID patterns:

Hey @alice check this out!

2. RDF Predicate for Mentions

Add structured data using schema:mentions or a custom predicate:

<#msg1> sioc:content "Hey @alice check this out!" ;
        schema:mentions <https://alice.solidcommunity.net/profile/card#me> .

3. Notifications

Use Linked Data Notifications (LDN) to notify mentioned users:

  • Send notification to user's inbox
  • Include reference to the message

Open Questions

  • How to resolve @alice to a WebID? (contacts list, same pod, etc.)
  • Should mentions trigger inbox notifications?
  • Display: highlight mentions? Link to profile?

References

Activity

  1. EspenMarthini commented on Jan 9, 2026

    @EspenMarthini
    Contributor

    I have created a draft functionality for this. I am trying to find out how to upload. Is the gh-pages the area for test commits?

    git --no-optional-locks -c color.branch=false -c color.diff=false -c color.status=false -c diff.mnemonicprefix=false -c core.quotepath=false -c credential.helper=sourcetree push -v --tags origin refs/heads/main:refs/heads/gh-pages
    Pushing to https://github.com/solid-chat/app.git
    remote: Permission to solid-chat/app.git denied to EspenMarthini.
    fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/solid-chat/app.git/': The requested URL returned error: 403
    Completed with errors, see above

  2. melvincarvalho commented on Jan 9, 2026

    @melvincarvalho
    ContributorAuthor

    Welcome @EspenMarthini, and thanks for jumping in on this! Really exciting that you've already got draft functionality working.

    About the 403: That's expected - you'll need to fork the repo first, then open a Pull Request. Here's the flow:

    1. Fork this repo (button at top-right of the page)
    2. Clone your fork:
      git clone https://github.com/EspenMarthini/app.git
      cd app
    3. Make your changes (sounds like you've done this already!)
    4. Push to your fork:
      git add .
      git commit -m "feat: add @mentions support"
      git push origin gh-pages
    5. Open a Pull Request from your fork back to this repo

    The default branch here is gh-pages, which deploys directly to https://solid-chat.github.io/app/ - so yes, that's the right branch to target.

    Looking forward to seeing what you've built! Feel free to open a draft PR if you'd like early feedback, or ask any questions here. Happy to help.

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