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# Scrabble Game — Architecture
Source of truth for the platform architecture, transport, security model and
cross-service contracts. User-visible behaviour per domain lives in
[`FUNCTIONAL.md`](FUNCTIONAL.md); the staged build order lives in
[`../PLAN.md`](../PLAN.md). This document always describes the **current**
design, not the history of how it was reached. Sections describing
not-yet-implemented components are marked *(planned)*.
## 1. Overview
Three executables plus per-platform side-services:
- **`gateway`** *(planned)* — the only public ingress. Performs anti-abuse
(rate limiting), authenticates the player against the originating platform
(or an email/guest session), resolves the internal `user_id`, and forwards
authenticated traffic to `backend` with an `X-User-ID` header. Hosts an admin
surface behind HTTP Basic Auth. Bridges live events from `backend` to the
client.
- **`backend`** — internal-only service that owns every domain concern:
identity/sessions, accounts and linking, lobby and matchmaking, the game
runtime, the robot opponent, chat, notifications, statistics, history, and
administration. Embeds the **`scrabble-solver`** engine **as a library,
in-process** — there is no per-game container. The only network consumer of
`backend` is `gateway` (plus platform side-services over an internal API).
- **`ui`** *(planned)* — pure-HTML5 client (plain Svelte + Vite, static build).
Talks to `backend` only through `gateway`. Embeddable in platform webviews;
packageable to native (iOS/Android) via Capacitor.
- **`platform/<name>`** *(planned)* — per-platform side-services (Telegram bot
first): deep-link invites and platform-native push notifications. They talk
to `backend` over an internal API.
```mermaid
flowchart LR
Client((Client / webview)) -- Connect-RPC + FlatBuffers (h2c) --> Gateway
Gateway -- REST/JSON, X-User-ID --> Backend
Backend -- gRPC server-stream (live events) --> Gateway
Gateway -- in-app stream --> Client
Backend -- pgx --> Postgres[(Postgres)]
Backend -. embeds .- Solver[[scrabble-solver library]]
Telegram[Telegram bot side-service] -- internal API --> Backend
```
The MVP runs `gateway` and `backend` as single-instance processes inside a
trusted network. No Redis is planned (anti-replay crypto was deliberately
dropped). Horizontal scaling is explicit future work.
## 2. Transport
- **client ↔ gateway**: **Connect-RPC + FlatBuffers** over HTTP/2 cleartext
(`h2c`). Binary payloads, server-streaming for the in-app live channel,
first-class JS clients (`@connectrpc/connect-web` + the `flatbuffers` npm
package). The contract is kept minimal.
- **gateway ↔ backend (sync)**: plain HTTP REST/JSON. The gateway injects
`X-User-ID` for authenticated requests; `backend` never re-derives identity
from the body.
- **backend → gateway (live)**: a single gRPC server-stream carries live events
(your-turn, opponent-moved, chat, nudge). The gateway bridges them to the
client's in-app stream while the app is open. Out-of-app delivery uses
platform-native push via the platform side-service.
## 3. Authentication & sessions
Platform-native, deliberately simple: **no Ed25519 client keys, no per-request
signing, no anti-replay crypto** (these were considered and dropped — players
arrive from a platform rather than completing a mandatory registration).
- The gateway validates the originating credential **once** — the platform's
signed launch data (e.g. Telegram `initData` HMAC), an email-code login, or a
guest bootstrap — then mints a **thin opaque server session token**
(`session_id`).
- The client holds `session_id` in memory for the app session (browser/OS
storage is optional and may be unavailable; losing it means re-login).
- The gateway caches `session → user_id` and injects `X-User-ID`. Sessions are
revocable. Session records live in `backend`.
- **Guest** = ephemeral web session (no platform, no email): session-only,
nothing persisted; restricted to auto-match, with no friends and no
stats/history. Platform users are auto-provisioned **durable** accounts.
## 4. Accounts, identities, linking & merge
- One internal account may carry several **platform identities**
(`telegram`, `vk`, …) plus an optional **email** identity. First contact from
a platform auto-provisions a durable account bound to that platform identity.
- **Linking** is initiated from an authenticated profile: choose a platform →
complete that platform's web-auth confirm → attach the identity to the
current account.
- **Merge**: if the identity being linked already has its own account with
history, the two accounts are **merged into the current one (A is primary)**:
statistics are summed, games and friends are transferred, duplicates are
de-duplicated, the secondary account is retired. High blast-radius; an
isolated, well-tested stage.
## 5. Game engine integration (`scrabble-solver`)
`backend` embeds the solver library (see [`CLAUDE.md`](../CLAUDE.md) for the
exact public API and constraints). Key points:
- Variants at launch: **English Scrabble**, **Russian Scrabble**, **Эрудит**
`rules.English()`, `rules.RussianScrabble()`, `rules.Erudit()`.
- Dictionaries are committed DAWGs loaded with `dawg.Load`; held in memory and
addressed by `(variant, dict_version)`.
- **Dictionary versioning — pin per game.** A game records the `dict_version`
it started on and finishes on that version; new games use the latest. Multiple
versions may be resident at once. An admin reload endpoint *(planned)* adds a
new version; delivery is the DAWG file in the image / a mounted volume.
- Move generation/validation/scoring use `Solver.GenerateMoves` (ranked),
`Solver.ValidatePlay`, `Solver.ScorePlay`; board mutation uses
`scrabble.Apply`. Tile bag follows the `selfplay.Bag` pattern.
## 6. Game rules
- **Word legality: validate-at-submit.** An illegal play is rejected by
`Solver.ValidatePlay`; there is no challenge phase.
- **End of game**: the bag is empty **and** a player empties their rack, **or**
**6 consecutive scoreless turns** (passes/exchanges). A move that is not made
within the **24-hour** turn timeout becomes an automatic resignation.
- **Players**: auto-match is always 2 players; friend games are 24 players.
`backend` owns turn order and the bag for any player count.
- **Hint**: one per game; reveals the top-1 ranked move (`GenerateMoves[0]`).
- **Word-check tool**: unlimited dictionary lookups; each result offers a
**complaint** that lands in an admin review queue *(admin side planned)*.
## 7. Robot opponent
Substitutes for a human in 2-player auto-match when the pool yields no human
within 10 seconds. Designed to be indistinguishable from a person.
- **Balance**: at game start it decides once whether to play to win, with
`P(play-to-win) ≈ 0.40` (so the human wins ≈ 60%). Adaptive difficulty is
post-MVP.
- **Margin targeting**: each turn it picks from `GenerateMoves` a move that
keeps the resulting lead (when playing to win) or deficit (when playing to
lose) small (≈ 120 points), rather than always the maximum.
- **Timing**: per-move delay sampled from a right-skewed distribution (short
delays frequent), clamped to **[2, 90] minutes**; **sleeps 00:0007:00** in
the opponent's profile timezone (fallback UTC); on a daytime nudge after 60
minutes idle it replies within **210 minutes**; it proactively nudges the
human after 12 hours idle.
- Blocks friend requests and direct messages; uses a human-like name pool.
## 8. Lobby & social
- **Matchmaking** *(detail planned)*: a FIFO pool keyed by `(variant,
language)`; 10 s with no human match → substitute the robot.
- **Friends**: add by friend list, internal ID, or platform deep-link.
- **Block** settings independently suppress in-game chat and friend requests.
- **Chat**: per-game, persisted, length-limited, suppressed by the block
setting.
- **Nudge**: a player may nudge the opponent whose turn is awaited once per
hour; the opponent receives a platform-native notification.
- **Profile**: `preferred_language` (en/ru), display name, linked platform
accounts, email (confirm-code binding), **timezone** (drives robot sleep;
default from platform/locale, user-editable), block toggles.
## 9. Persistence
- Single Postgres database, schema `backend`; `backend` is the only writer.
pgx pool; queries via go-jet *(introduced when the first real query lands)*;
migrations embedded and applied with `pressly/goose/v3` at startup *(planned)*.
- **Active game state** is stored structurally with the `dict_version` pinned.
- **Statistics** (computed on finish): wins, losses, max points in a game, max
points for a single word.
### 9.1 History invariant (must hold forever)
Archived games must replay **independently of any dictionary and of the
solver's internal encoding** — at least visually. Therefore the move log
persists only **decoded concrete values**: letters as text, coordinates, blank
flag, action kind (play / pass / exchange / resign / timeout), acting player,
per-move score and running total, timestamp. The board for visual replay is
reconstructed by applying placements onto an empty grid; no dictionary is
needed because moves were validated at play time and scores are stored.
`variant` and `dict_version` are kept as **metadata only** (audit, complaint
review), never as a replay dependency. **GCG export** is derived from the same
rows and is likewise self-contained (we ship our own writer; the solver exposes
no public GCG writer).
## 10. Notifications
Two channels: **platform-native push** (out-of-app, via the platform
side-service — your-turn, nudge) and the **in-app live stream** (chat,
opponent-moved, while the app is open). Backend emits notification intents;
delivery fans out to the appropriate channel.
## 11. Observability
- Structured logging with `go.uber.org/zap` (JSON). OpenTelemetry traces and
metrics, with a Prometheus pull endpoint where configured *(introduced with
the first real workload)*.
- Per-request server-side timing via middleware from day one. A client-measured
RTT piggybacked on the next request is a later enhancement, not MVP.
- Unauthenticated `GET /healthz` (liveness) and `GET /readyz` (readiness).
## 12. Security boundaries
| Concern | Enforced by |
| --- | --- |
| Public rate limiting / anti-abuse | gateway |
| Platform credential validation, session minting | gateway |
| Session → `user_id` resolution, `X-User-ID` injection | gateway |
| Authorisation, ownership, state transitions | backend (`X-User-ID` is the sole identity input) |
| Admin authentication | gateway Basic Auth → backend admin endpoints |
| backend ↔ gateway trust | the network (only gateway may reach backend) |
This is an explicit, accepted MVP risk: compromise of the gateway↔backend
network segment defeats backend authentication. Mitigated by network isolation;
mutual auth is a future hardening step.
## 13. Deployment (informational)
Single public origin, path-routed: the UI, the gateway public surface and the
admin surface share one host that terminates TLS. MVP runs one `gateway`, one
`backend`, one Postgres. Docker/compose environments are introduced when there
is something to deploy.
## 14. CI & branches
- Trunk is **`master`**; feature work happens on `feature/*` branches merged via
PR with a green CI gate (from Stage 1 onward — the genesis commit necessarily
lands on `master`).
- `.gitea/workflows/` holds the CI. `go-unit.yaml` runs gofmt/vet/build/test on
Go changes; more workflows (ui-test, integration, deploy) are added with the
components they cover.
- After any push, the run is watched to green before a stage is declared done
(`python3 ~/.claude/bin/gitea-ci-watch.py`).