Features

Uploads

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Uploads

Uploads are files keyed by an upl_... ID and attached to messages through a join table. The default backend is local disk; Cloudflare R2 can store bytes for ephemeral container deployments. The server streams uploads back to authenticated workspace members and serves common safe preview types inline.

#Endpoints

POST /api/uploads?workspace_id=...&nonce=...       # multipart: file; nonce is optional
GET  /api/uploads/by-nonce?workspace_id=...&nonce=...
GET  /api/uploads/{upload_id}                      # streams the file
POST /api/messages/{message_id}/attachments        # { upload_id }
  • Upload size cap: 64 MiB per request.
  • The file is written to the configured upload backend under a random

    • upload-* key. The original filename is recorded in the uploads row but not used as the storage key.

  • Content-Type falls back to application/octet-stream when the client

    • doesn't send one.

  • Clients that may retry an upload can send a nonce of up to 128 characters.

    • The workspace_id query parameter is required when a nonce is present. The first request returns 201; later requests from the same uploader return the original upload with 200 without reading or storing the multipart body. The nonce lookup endpoint returns the same metadata without downloading the file and includes X-ClickClack-Upload-Nonce: supported, including on a 404 lookup miss. Reusing the nonce for another workspace returns 409.

  • Guests cannot upload or attach files while they are still in the waiting

    • room. Timed-out and blocked users are also upload-restricted.

#Attaching to a message

POST /api/messages/{message_id}/attachments records a row in message_attachments. The store hydrates attachments on ListMessages/GetThread, so subsequent reads include the attachment list without an extra round-trip.

The handler checks that the requester can read the upload, can access the message workspace, and is the message author before linking. Bot tokens need both uploads:write and messages:write.

The web client renders common previewable types in compact attachment cards:

  • image/* inline, preserving recorded dimensions when available.
  • video/* as inline native players with controls.
  • audio/* as inline native audio controls.
  • application/pdf as a document card with the filename, size, authenticated

    • download link, and an explicit open action.

  • text/plain as a lightweight text-file card.

Other content types appear as authenticated download cards that link to /api/uploads/{upload_id}. The server sends Content-Disposition: inline only for the safe preview set (image, video, audio, text/plain, and application/pdf) and keeps X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff plus a sandbox content-security policy on upload responses.

#Artifact viewer

Attached code, text, Markdown, PDF, Open XML spreadsheets and slide decks, and HTML files open in a read-only artifact pane without leaving the conversation. DOCX stays download-only because ZIP metadata cannot hard-bound decompression before a browser conversion library allocates the expanded document. The pane temporarily covers the thread or profile pane on desktop and fills the viewport on mobile; closing it restores the underlying pane and route. Images retain the existing lightbox; audio and video retain their inline controls.

Classification uses the upload's recorded filename and original content type, not the response Content-Type. This lets the client recognize HTML while the server continues to serve it as a hardened download.

  • Code and text render as escaped source. Known code languages up to 256 KiB

    • are highlighted in a terminable worker with a two-second timeout and a 2 MiB output cap; larger source remains escaped plain text. Markdown offers preview and source modes. Preview uses a positive allowlist of structural text, code, list, heading, quote, and table tags with no attributes; links, images, media, raw containers, and CSS remain visible in source mode only.

  • PDFs load only after the user opens the document, render one page at a time,

    • and provide page and zoom controls. Actual response bytes, load time, render time, embedded-image pixels, worker canvas bytes, each DPR-scaled backing dimension, and total backing pixels are capped. Files or pages outside those limits fall back to the authenticated download.

  • XLSX-family workbooks render bounded raw cached cell values in a scrollable

    • grid with worksheet tabs. Number, currency, and date formatting is not reconstructed, and hidden or non-worksheet sheets are omitted. Formulas use their cached values; macros are never executed.

  • PPTX-family decks render a text outline with previous and next controls.

    • Visuals, layout, animations, speaker notes, and hidden slides are omitted. The original remains available for download when visual fidelity matters.

  • Office parsing runs in a terminable worker with a five-second timeout. ZIP

    • paths and relationships are validated, document parts are streamed through bounded decompression and namespace-aware XML parsing, and limits apply per entry and across the whole document. The preview caps archive entries, expanded bytes, XML elements, cell text, total spreadsheet text, worksheets, cells, slides, paragraphs, and total slide text before rendering.

  • DOCX files never enter a browser parser. Normal, malformed, compressed-bomb,

    • and oversized DOCX uploads all use the same authenticated download-only path.

  • Uploaded HTML is parsed only in an inert template; scripts, forms, frames,

    • styles, and fetchable URLs are stripped before the safe fragment enters the keyboard-scrollable preview DOM. The original remains available in Source.

  • Text, code, Markdown, and HTML previews are limited to 2 MiB; Office Open XML

    • previews to 24 MiB compressed and 12 MiB expanded; PDF to the server's 64 MiB upload cap. The client checks streamed response bytes rather than trusting metadata alone. Larger or malformed files fall back to an authenticated download.

Artifact viewing does not mutate upload bytes. Collaborative Markdown editing requires a future first-class, revisioned artifact model rather than changing an immutable message attachment in place.

#Storage layout

Local disk:

<data>/
  clickclack.db
  uploads/
    upload-XXXXXXXX
    ...
  logs/

Configure <data> with --data or CLICKCLACK_DATA. The server creates uploads/ on demand when the first request arrives.

R2:

CLICKCLACK_UPLOADS=r2://clickclack-uploads/prod
CLICKCLACK_R2_ACCOUNT_ID=...
CLICKCLACK_R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID=...
CLICKCLACK_R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...

R2 keys are stored in the database as r2://bucket/prefix/upload-.... Download requests are still authenticated by ClickClack before the object is fetched from R2.

#What is intentionally missing

  • Server-side image thumbnailing/transcoding.
  • Virus scanning.
  • Per-workspace quotas.