**Category:** new-feature
**User Impact:** Mobile users must confirm with Face ID, biometrics, or
their device passcode before sending their Buzz identity to Desktop.
**Problem:** A signed-in phone could send its full identity, including
the `nsec`, to a desktop without fresh local verification.
**Solution:** Require OS device authentication before opening the
identity-recovery scanner, retain that authorization only for the active
pairing session and short pairing window, and require fresh
authentication again if it expires before the identity payload is sent.
Normal app opening, identity import, and community removal remain
unchanged.
## Screencasts
| Enable Face ID | Use Face ID |
| --- | --- |
| 
| 
|
<details>
<summary>File changes</summary>
**Android and iOS integration**
- `mobile/android/app/build.gradle.kts` declares the AppCompat
dependency required by the biometric activity theme.
-
`mobile/android/app/src/main/kotlin/xyz/block/buzz/mobile/MainActivity.kt`
uses the activity type required by the system authentication prompt.
- `mobile/android/app/src/main/res/values/styles.xml` and
`mobile/android/app/src/main/res/values-night/styles.xml` use the
compatible launch theme.
- `mobile/ios/Podfile.lock` records the native local-authentication
dependency.
- `mobile/ios/Runner/Info.plist` explains why Buzz requests Face ID
access.
**Identity policy and pairing flow**
- `mobile/lib/shared/security/sensitive_action_authorizer.dart` wraps OS
authentication and maps platform errors to stable app-level outcomes.
- `mobile/lib/shared/community/community.dart` and
`mobile/lib/shared/community/community_storage.dart` persist the
sensitive-action policy.
- `mobile/lib/features/invites/invite_join_provider.dart` assigns the
explicit policy for invite-created communities.
- `mobile/lib/features/pairing/pairing_provider.dart` gates export,
binds grants to the active community/session, reauthenticates expired
grants, and clears grants on every terminal path.
- `mobile/lib/features/pairing/pairing_page.dart` lets users choose
biometric protection while importing an identity.
- `mobile/lib/features/settings/settings_page.dart` wires pairing into
settings.
- `mobile/lib/features/settings/settings_page/connection_section.dart`
authenticates before opening export recovery and bounds the
foreground-resume wait.
- `mobile/pubspec.yaml` and `mobile/pubspec.lock` add and lock
`local_auth`.
**Coverage**
- `mobile/test/shared/security/sensitive_action_authorizer_test.dart`
covers native result mapping, unsupported devices, and single-flight
behavior.
- `mobile/test/shared/community/community_test.dart` and
`mobile/test/shared/community/community_storage_test.dart` cover policy
defaults and persistence.
- `mobile/test/features/invites/invite_join_provider_test.dart` covers
the invite policy.
- `mobile/test/features/pairing/pairing_page_test.dart` covers import
protection controls.
- `mobile/test/features/pairing/pairing_provider_test.dart` covers
export/import authorization, stale/reset/concurrent guards, malformed
payload cleanup, and no-export failure paths.
- `mobile/test/features/settings/connection_section_test.dart` covers
the tap gate, lifecycle resume, and timeout behavior.
</details>
## Reproduction steps
1. Pair an identity into the mobile app.
2. Open Settings and choose “Send identity to desktop.”
3. Verify Face ID, biometrics, or the device passcode is required before
the recovery scanner opens.
4. Cancel device authentication and verify the scanner does not open and
no identity transfer begins.
5. Authenticate, scan a Desktop recovery code, confirm the SAS, and
verify the identity transfer completes.
## Validation
At `be5620f5f10aa6cc16e86a4f01f102f3d9aeef9b`:
- `cd mobile && ../bin/flutter analyze` — no issues
- `cd mobile && ../bin/flutter test` — 1,368 tests passed
- `cd mobile/android && JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home -v 21)
./gradlew app:assembleDebug` — debug APK assembled successfully
---------
Signed-off-by: Taylor Ho <taylorkmho@gmail.com>
### Summary
Fixes [this
issue](buzz://message?channel=e62570dd-33ad-42c5-b92b-75f2689f9694&id=b726c366abfe62429ee3cdcd34d0c0fb98c33c3ea053480585bed71745412b56):
> I often don’t see my bot responses until after I post. they’re usually
time stamped correctly so I think it’s just a refresh issue?
### What changed?
Buzz Mobile now reconnects relay sessions after the app has remained
backgrounded beyond the existing 5-second grace period, even when the
session still reports a stale `connected` state. This makes resume
recovery independent of whether iOS runs the grace timer before or after
delivering `resumed`.
Reconnection is now based on elapsed background time rather than a
direct socket-health probe.
- If the app was backgrounded for at least the 5-second grace period,
the socket is presumed dead and the session reconnects regardless of
reported status.
- If it was backgrounded for less than that, a reported `connected`
status is still trusted.
In the sub-5-second window the socket is either genuinely alive, which
is the common case for a momentary background, or it is dead and the
client ping detects it within the two-interval worst case described
below. That is now a degraded-latency path, not a silent-forever path.
The mobile relay socket now uses `IOWebSocketChannel.connect` with a
30-second `pingInterval`. An unanswered ping closes the Dart socket
through the existing disconnect and reconnect path.
Detection takes up to two ping intervals, so about 60 seconds worst
case, not 30. One interval of idleness elapses and a ping is sent, then
a second interval elapses with no pong and the socket closes. Any
inbound pong restarts the first stage, so the clock measures idleness
rather than running on a fixed cadence.
### Why?
Buzz iOS can sometimes stop showing new bot or agent responses after a
phone has been locked for 5 to 10 minutes. When the user later posts a
message, the missing responses can appear all at once. iOS may suspend
Buzz before the short delayed cleanup that would normally close its
connection has a chance to run. Before this change, Buzz trusted the
resulting stale healthy status on resume and skipped reconnecting, so
the missing responses stayed hidden until a later post exposed the dead
connection.
A state-machine test with a stubbed connection reproduced this reported
pattern and showed that it matches this failure mode: the failed post
triggered a reconnect that fetched the missing messages. The same test
also checked the other candidate explanation, the bug tracked in
[#3053](https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/3053), where the relay has
closed the app's subscription. That state does not produce the pattern.
Posting succeeds and the user's own message appears, but nothing looks
for the missed messages, so they stay hidden. The test confirmed that
the missed messages were still available to fetch in that state, so the
missing step was a trigger to fetch them. This was not an end-to-end
reproduction on an iOS device or a live relay.
The new resume check covers the normal lock and unlock path. If the app
was backgrounded for less than the 5-second grace period, it still
trusts a connection marked as healthy. A dead connection in that window
is instead detected by the ping check, which can take up to about 60
seconds but prevents the app from remaining silently stuck. The ping
only runs while iOS is running the app, so it does not detect a
connection that died during suspension; the resume check owns the lock
and unlock path.
A pre-existing path also runs the same resume handling when network
connectivity returns while the app is already in the foreground. Because
the app was not backgrounded, this change does not alter that path,
which still trusts a connection marked as healthy and relies on the
slower ping check.
Recovery from a subscription that the relay explicitly closes remains in
[#3053](https://github.com/block/buzz/pull/3053), and the two changes
overlap in one file. Changes to how missed messages are backfilled or
replayed are out of scope.
### How is it tested?
Full mobile suite at base and head. Both runs have the same known
macOS-host-only failure in `ChannelDetailPage keeps follow mode off
while a tall newest message stays visible` at line 1053:
- Base: 1,021 passed, 1 skipped, 1 failed
- Head: 1,025 passed, 1 skipped, 1 failed
Added tests:
-
[`relay_session_test.dart`](https://github.com/block/buzz/tree/main/mobile/test/shared/relay/relay_session_test.dart):
long-background resume reconnect and within-grace control
-
[`relay_socket_liveness_test.dart`](https://github.com/block/buzz/tree/main/mobile/test/shared/relay/relay_socket_liveness_test.dart):
silent-peer disconnect and idle-but-healthy control
Mutation checks confirm that removing elapsed-background resume recovery
fails with one socket instead of two, and removing `pingInterval` leaves
the silent peer connected. Restored production code passes both
mutations' regression tests and the healthy idle control.
Signed-off-by: Tom Brow <tomb@block.xyz>
Co-authored-by: npub1tquskdu6yc4h8l7xxtceculxw600grekeq0xg2ukqfrwl7vrzg3quz3gmp <58390b379a262b73ffc632f19c73e6769ef40f36c81e642b960246eff9831222@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Brings the Flutter app's emoji and thread surfaces up to desktop parity.
## Emoji
- **Full emoji-mart dataset** generated from the same `@emoji-mart/data`
set desktop uses (1,870 emoji, 8 categories), committed as an asset — so
shortcodes, names, and keywords are identical across clients. `just
mobile-emoji-data` regenerates it.
- **Rebuilt the tray**: search (a Dart port of desktop's tiered
`emojiSearch` ranking, extended to names and keywords), a
frequently-used section, and one continuous scroll with pinned section
headers. The category rail is a shortcut into that list, not a page
switcher, and spans the full width the search field uses. Custom emoji
share the native glyph size and cell.
- **Reaction pills** match desktop's geometry, and the count shows at 1.
- **Emoji-only messages** render at 36px with 1.45em inline custom
emoji, matching desktop's `emojiOnly` treatment.
- **Positive-emoji burst** ported from desktop's `EmojiBurstProvider`,
suppressed under reduced motion.
## Threads
- **Top-down layout** — head first under the app bar, replies flowing
down, like desktop's thread panel. The old reversed list bottom-anchored
the content and jammed the head against the composer.
- **Tap a channel message to open its thread**; long-press still opens
the action sheet.
- **Live reactions.** The thread's relay query is one-shot and its
`kinds` filter carries only content rows, so a reaction event could not
reach an open thread at all, and `allMessages` was a snapshot frozen
when the route was pushed — a new pill only appeared after leaving and
re-entering, which refetched. The live channel events are now unioned
into the thread's list. The burst is also route-guarded, since the
channel timeline stays mounted underneath and was claiming it first.
- The `+` affordance follows the channel: replies stay bare until they
carry a reaction, and the head keeps a standing `+`.
## Keyboard
A deliberate downward drag past ~48px dismisses the keyboard; short
scrolls leave it alone. Applies to the channel list, the thread list,
and the compose bar (via a raw `Listener`, so it can't steal the field's
tap or selection drags).
True finger-tracking dismissal is out of scope — Flutter only offers
`manual`/`onDrag`, and 1:1 tracking needs a native `UIScrollView` proxy
plus Android's `WindowInsetsAnimationController`.
## Testing
`just mobile-check` and `just mobile-test` pass (965 tests). New
coverage for emoji search ranking, dataset parsing, the emoji-only
predicate, tray scroll/rail behavior, reaction pills and the burst, and
both thread fixes above. `just ci` green.
---------
Signed-off-by: kenny lopez <klopez4212@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: npub12zsjdqx8dud99s9h47xmk9lq93vryf7zjrae8wdrmma52cg5yglseyulst <50a12680c76f1a52c0b7af8dbb17e02c583227c290fb93b9a3defb456114223f@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Signed-off-by: klopez4212 <klopez4212@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: npub12zsjdqx8dud99s9h47xmk9lq93vryf7zjrae8wdrmma52cg5yglseyulst <50a12680c76f1a52c0b7af8dbb17e02c583227c290fb93b9a3defb456114223f@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
## What
- group uploaded photos into full-width message carousels
- add a fullscreen viewer with pinch zoom, double-tap reset, swipe-down
dismissal, a centered filmstrip, and image actions
- preload nearby display-sized images for smoother swiping and keep each
upload as its own avatar-backed message
## Validation
- `just mobile-check`
- `flutter test test/features/channels/message_content_test.dart`
- iOS 26.5 simulator gesture pass
---------
Signed-off-by: kenny lopez <klopez4212@gmail.com>
