Community

Federation

irl.coop is a network of sovereign cooperative shards. Each shard operates independently, but can connect to others for shared identity, cross-shard communication, and federated governance — without surrendering local autonomy.

What federation means here

Federation in irl.coop is not merely technical interoperability. It is a governance and trust relationship between cooperatives. Two shards that federate agree to:

Recognize each other's member identities for cross-shard access
Allow cross-shard Matrix rooms and communication
Share governance visibility (read access to each other's proposals)
Optionally pool resources for specific shared projects

Federation agreements are voted on by each shard's membership independently. Either shard can revoke the agreement at any time by member vote.

Identity federation

When a member from Shard A visits Shard B, their identity from Shard A is presented to Shard B's Auth Edge. The Auth Edge issues a cross-shard session with the minimum permissions agreed upon in the federation agreement. No database is shared between shards — the session token carries the cross-shard claims.

Communication federation

Matrix is natively federated. Shard A's Dendrite homeserver can communicate directly with Shard B's homeserver. Members on different shards can be in the same room, with each homeserver storing the messages for its own members. No central relay is required.

Email federation is handled automatically by SMTP: Stalwart on each shard can send and receive email from any Stalwart (or standard SMTP) server.

The irl.coop network

The irl.coop network is the set of all shards that have chosen to federate with the core irl.coop node. Network membership provides:

Discovery — your shard appears in the irl.coop network directory
Status monitoring — your shard's health is visible in the network pulse
Shared software updates — access to the cooperative's maintained software stack
Cross-network governance participation — ability to participate in network-wide proposals

Network membership is not mandatory. Shards can operate fully independently or federate only with specific other shards without connecting to the core network.

Shard technical requirements

To operate a shard and participate in federation:

Minimum 4GB RAM, 2 vCPU for the core service stack
Stable internet connection with a public IP or domain
Valid SSL certificate (Let's Encrypt is sufficient)
Running the current irl.coop software stack
Commitment to the cooperative's code of conduct