matrix-org / matrix-org/pinecone

[FR] “Sparse” peerings

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Dominant language
Go
Stars
486
Forks
37
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

### What

Peerings with “sparse” status, an explicit opt in on both sides go allow a connection more low-throughput, high-latency, more unreliable, or with less duty cycles than the current pinecone peerings require.

### Why

Primarily, iot devices, to allow for power savings, yet stay connected to the network at times, allowing peers at the other side of the sparse connection to queue up packets and send them through whenever the underlying transport allows.

Secondly, resiliency in unreliable conditions, where a peer wants to accept high-latency costs, at the benefit of not becoming disconnected from the network at large. (Think remote outposts in unfavourable weather conditions resulting in unreliable uplinks, or network operators in hostile environments requiring prolonged connectivity over intermittent outages)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by tracing how Pinecone represents peerings and connection state, then determine the protocol and queueing behavior required for an explicit sparse opt-in on both sides. Done means sparse peers remain connected through intermittent, low-throughput links while queued packets can be sent when transport permits.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go
Domain
distributed-systems, networking
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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