Following Process

(From https://tent.io/docs/server-protocol)

The process to start following another entity is to use HTTP POST to your own /followers URL with the information needed to start following that entity.

Assuming I am the entity alex on my own server pytent.alexanderdbrown.com and want to follow james on his server tent.example.com

POST https://pytent.example.com/alex/followers HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/vnd.tent.v0+json
Accept: application/vnd.tent.v0+json
...

The accompanying json files would be:

{
  "entity": "https://tent.example.org/james",
  "types": [
    "all"
  ],
  "notification_path": "notifications/followers",
  "licenses": [
    "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"
  ]
}

This will start off by performing a HEAD request on james.

HEAD https://tent.example.org/james HTTP/1.1
...

Returning the link header with james's profile.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Link: <https://tent.example.org/james/profile>; rel="https://tent.io/rels/profile"
...

My server now has a link to his profile. As part of server discovery, this needs to have a GET performed on it to make sure the canonical entity is correct.

GET https://tent.example.org/james/profile HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/vnd.tent.v0+json
...

Which will return:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Link: <https://tent.example.org/james/profile>; rel="https://tent.io/rels/profile"
Content-Type: application/vnd.tent.v0+json
...

With the data along the lines of:

{
  "https://tent.io/types/info/core/v0.1.0": {
    "licences": [
      "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"
    ], 
    "servers": [
      "https://tent.example.com/james"
    ], 
    "tent_version": "0.2", 
    "entity": "https://tent.example.com/james"
  }
}

From here we would make sure the entities are matching. If they are we then issue a POST to our own notification path to make sure that works.

POST https://pytentd.alexanderdbrown.com/alex/notification/followers HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/vnd.tent.v0+json
Accept: application/vnd.tent.v0+json
...

Which will return some form the json. I'm not quite sure what yet ;-)

Finally the follower relationship is saved into the database and finally the following data will be returned to the client:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/vnd.tent.v0+json
...

{
  "entity": "https://tent.example.org/james",
  "created_at": 1355181298,
  "permissions": {
    "public": true
  },
  "id": ...,
  "mac_key_id": ...,
  "mac_key": ...,
  "mac_algorithm": ...,
  "licenses": [
    "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/"
  ],
  "types": [
    "all"
  ],
  "notification_path": "notifications/followers"
}

(As a side note, I'm not exactly sure the point of the id field in that returned json. I suspect it's just an identifier for the database. But the tent specification isn't forthcoming).

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