96 — Accounts, hosting and access

DesignedRendered from 96-accounts-and-hosting.md in the public repository. Edits belong there.

This page states what an account is for, the ways an instance is hosted, what a host must provide, and which parts are built.

The model

The software needs no account. An instance someone runs holds its own records at its own address. micyte/ registers tools, channels and packages without an identity provider.
An account is a person's sign-in to an instance someone else runs: their own instance hosted for them, or the instance of an organization they belong to. An account is free.
A hosted instance is what is charged, for the storage, compute and traffic it uses. Prices are stated by the host, not by this wiki or by micyte.com.
Services are ports. Mail, website hosting and payments are filled by extensions (92). An instance can be configured to use them or not.
The registrar is a parameter. The network is instances that connect directly, plus a registrar that resolves an msn to an instance. micyte/domains/registry/engine.py takes the registrar as authority_msn_id. Anyone can run a registrar. Fruitful Network Development runs the registry micyte.com reads and publishes the package catalogue.

Ways an instance is hosted

Hosting	What it means
Local	The software on a machine the owner controls. No account. A registrar is needed only to be found by other instances.
A third party	Someone else runs instances for their clients.
Fruitful Network Development	FND runs the instance and provides the three things below.

A host other than the owner must provide:

Accounts and sign-in. The software opens a session against an instance; who may open one is the host's policy.
Port routing. Binding an extension to a port and granting its functions are two separate acts by the host operator (92).
Updates. Someone decides when an instance moves to a new release. The catalogue is pull-only (93).

Access surfaces for a hosted instance

Surface	State
Browser	Built. The portal, signed in through the instance's `msn_profile`.
Local sync	Not built. A local copy of a hosted instance kept in sync, so the records are reachable without the network and without the host.
Mobile	Not built.

A session is opened against an instance, which is identified by its msn_profile. That is also the document Director opens when a host looks at an instance it hosts.

MiCyte Lite

A free account is a small instance shown through a reduced surface set. SURFACE_SET_LITE in micyte/state_machine/portal_shell/shell_registry.py: build_portal_surface_catalog(surface_set="lite") returns three surfaces: Network, Profile and Utilities.

Profile is the client's profile.
Utilities is the instance diagram drawn with static=True: no links and nothing focusable (92). There is no Marketplace tab.
Network is the map without the icons that open other surfaces.

The host decides which sign-ins get Lite. A request for a surface outside the set is refused, not just hidden from the rail.

Using a host's services from an instance the host does not run

micyte/adapters/hosted/ holds a transport (HostedServiceClient, which authorizes before it sends), a credential file (HostedServiceCredential: base URL, alias and the key the host issued) and two adapters, HostedEmailAdapter and HostedSiteAdapter, that call the host's <base>/<port>/<action> door. The fnd_service package fills email_provider and site_hosting for instances FND hosts (FND Service).

Not built

Self-serve account creation. The host's operator establishes each account.
The hosted adapters as a catalogue extension. The Ports surface cannot build them yet.
A host setting for the registrar. The host uses a constant default; no configuration key names another registrar.
Person-level accounts on the network. Network participation is per instance. It depends on discovery and magnet resolution (90).
Enforcement of base-plan allowances. The free allowance is enforced by the host; base-plan amounts are displayed, not enforced.
Local sync and a mobile app, above.