owncast-IRC-bridge/chat-summaries/2026-03-10_brainstorm-summary.md

Owncast–IRC Bridge: Brainstorm & Design Session

Date: 2026-03-10

Task

Design a bidirectional chat bridge between Owncast (https://owncast.bowlafterbowl.com) and IRC (irc.zeronode.net / #BowlAfterBowl).

Decisions Made

• Language: Rust
• Architecture: Tokio async runtime with concurrent tasks (IRC, Webhook, WebSocket, Health Poller, Router, Control Socket) communicating via mpsc channels
• Owncast ingest: Webhooks (primary) + WebSocket (fallback)
• Identity: Prefixed messages — [IRC] <nick> / [OC] <user>
• Extras: Stream start/stop announcements in IRC, auto-reconnect with exponential backoff
• Owncast lifecycle: Three-state model (Online, OfflineChatOpen, Unavailable) with health polling
• Runtime control: Unix domain socket + bridge-ctl CLI tool
• Deployment: Binary + Dockerfile (multi-stage)

Files Created

• docs/plans/2026-03-10-owncast-irc-bridge-design.md — Full design document
• docs/plans/2026-03-10-owncast-irc-bridge-impl.md — 15-task implementation plan

Follow-up

• Open a new session and execute the implementation plan using superpowers:executing-plans skill
• Plan file: docs/plans/2026-03-10-owncast-irc-bridge-impl.md