Affinidi Meeting Place SDK

Affinidi Meeting Place SDK provides the toolkits to build a messaging app for a safe and secure method to discover, connect, and communicate between individuals, businesses, and AI agents using Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs) and DIDComm v2.1 protocol. DIDComm v2.1 protocol enables a secure and private communication between entities using Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs) as the basis of the user’s identity when communicating, instead of the usual email address or phone number.

Using the decentralised approach in communication, all users have control over their identity, giving them better privacy and anonymity when required. Meeting Place SDK facilitates seamless, secure, and authentic communication between humans, AI agents, robots, and organisations, ensuring trust in digital interactions.

Decentralised Identity

Using other chat applications, you usually register with your email address or phone number as your identifier, which exposes users to privacy risks. Meeting Place allows users to have multiple identities to represent themselves in various digital interactions, depending on the context.

Each connection established with another participant, whether direct or in a group chat, generates a unique set of Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs). This dynamic DID assignment enhances user privacy by separating identity contexts across different interactions.

• Channel DID to establish the connection.
• DIDs for participants within the established channel with their selected identity.

Discovery

The discovery through the Control Plane facilitates the secure discovery and establishment of a connection between participants in Meeting Place.

The Control Plane API facilitates the discovery and creation of secure channels between participants in Meeting Place to exchange messages using the DIDComm v2.1 protocol. The Control Plane API enables participants to publish a connection offer (invitation) using one of their identities (e.g., an identity for your gaming persona) for direct or group chat to allow discovery by other participants and initiate a connection request to start chatting with them through a secure channel.

A published invitation contains a description, validity, and a vCard containing additional information - it is up to the participants to provide more details or restrict the details to protect their privacy.

Core Concepts

• Decentralised Identifier (DID) - A globally unique identifier that enables secure interactions. The DID is the cornerstone of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), a concept that aims to put individuals or entities in control of their digital identities.

• DIDComm Message - is a JSON Web Message (JWM), a lightweight, secure, and standardised format for structured communication using JSON. It represents headers, message types, routing metadata, and payloads designed to enable secure and interoperable communication across different systems.

• Mediator - A service that handles and routes messages sent between participants (e.g., users, organisations, another mediator, or even AI agents).

• Out-Of-Band - The protocol defined in DIDComm enables sharing a DIDComm message or invitation through a transport method other than a direct, established DIDComm channel, such as via a QR code or a URL.

• Connection Offer (Invitation) - An invite to connect containing description and vCard info of the publisher. Each connection offer is assigned with a unique passphrase that others can use to discover and accept the offer to connect.

Key Features

• Support for multiple digital identities, ensuring privacy and anonymity when interacting with different entities across systems.
• End-to-end encryption of messages for more secure and private communication.
• Reduces spam by requiring the user’s consent when other users try to establish a connection.
• Implement the DIDComm Message v2.1 protocol, and connect and authenticate with different mediators that follow the same protocol.
• Seamlessly integrates with Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), including Verifiable Credentials/Presentations.

Key Components

Below are the key components of the Meeting Place SDK. Depending on your use case, they can be used independently. For example, you can use the Mediator SDK only on your backend or another application to send DIDComm messages without using the Chat SDK.

• Chat SDK - built on top of the core Meeting Place SDK that utilises Decentralised Identifier (DID) and DIDComm Messaging v2.1 protocol to send secure and private messages with end-to-end encryption.

• Core SDK - the core package implementing the Control Plane and Mediator SDK, including managing multiple digital identities for better privacy and anonymity across digital interactions.

• Control Plane SDK - enables participants to publish connection offers, allowing other participants to connect and communicate securely. It is an interface that integrates with the Affinidi Meeting Place Control Plane API service.

• Mediator SDK - enables participants to connect and authenticate with mediators, such as the DIDComm mediator, to send messages and connection offers. Mediator does not store permanently the messages and the content is not visible to the mediator.

• Drift Repository SDK - implements the Drift database to persist and manage channels, connection offers, groups, and chat history in the device’s local storage.

The Meeting Place SDK also leverages other Affinidi open-sourced SDKS, such as  DIDComm for Dart, which sends DIDComm messages, and  SSI for Dart, which manages decentralised identity and associated cryptographic keys.

Get Started

Prerequisite

• Dart SDK >=3.0.0 <4.0.0

Installation

Run:

        
dart pub add meeting_place_core

or manually, add the package into your pubspec.yaml file:

        
dependencies:
  meeting_place_core: ^<version_number>

and then run the command below to install the package:

        
dart pub get

Visit the pub.dev install page of the Dart package for more information.

Sample Usage

        
import 'dart:async';
import 'dart:convert';

import 'package:meeting_place_core/meeting_place_core.dart';
import 'package:ssi/ssi.dart';
import 'package:uuid/uuid.dart';

void main() async {
   final storage = InMemoryStorage();

   final aliceSDK = MeetingPlaceCoreSDK.create(
      wallet: PersistentWallet(InMemoryKeyStore()),
      repositoryConfig: RepositoryConfig(
         connectionOfferRepository: ConnectionOfferRepositoryImpl(storage: storage),
         groupRepository: GroupRepositoryImpl(storage: storage),
         channelRepository: ChannelRepositoryImpl(storage: storage),
         keyRepository: KeyRepositoryImpl(storage: storage),
      ),
      mediatorDid: 'did:web:samplemediator.affinidi.io:.well-known',
      controlPlaneDid: 'did:web:samplecontrolplane.affinidi.io', 
   );

   await aliceSDK.registerForPushNotifications(const Uuid().v4());

   final publishOfferResult = await aliceSDK.publishOffer(
      offerName: 'Example offer',
      offerDescription: 'Example offer to test.',
      vCard: VCard(values: {}),
      publishAsGroup: false,
      validUntil: DateTime.now().toUtc().add(const Duration(minutes: 5)),
  );
}

For more examples and runnable scripts, go to the example folder.