Rich conversation capabilities

1. Reply to a message#

Long-press on mobile or hover/right-click on desktop exposes Reply. On mobile, the selected bubble remains visible and a compact contextual menu is anchored beside it (not a bottom sheet): reactions first, then Reply, Copy, and Forward when supported. Claire places a compact quote preview above the composer with the source sender, a one-line truncation, and a clear cancel affordance. The sent and received bubble renders the same quote preview; a tap jumps to the original message when it remains locally available.

Do not call this “threaded conversations” in product copy. WhatsApp and Instagram replies, Telegram reply_parameters, and Matrix m.in_reply_to can map to a quoted message, while a true nested-thread model differs by platform. If a legacy connector cannot send a native reply, Claire disables Reply before composition rather than silently sending plain text that looks like a reply.

2. Send and play rich media#

The plus control opens a deliberate attachment tray: Photo, Video, File, and Location only when the current conversation supports the choice. Selected media enters a pre-send review state with thumbnail, caption, filename/size or duration, remove control, and upload status. A failed upload remains retriable and is never represented as delivered.

Incoming audio and video playback already exists in the mobile chat. This phase turns it into a complete media surface: thumbnail/poster, full-screen viewer, audio seek and speed, duration, download state, caption, save/share where allowed, and media/error fallback. The first outbound slice is photo, video, and documents; do not let a user select a media type before the bridge reports it can send it.

3. Voice notes#

The microphone is a small, always-visible control in the composer beside the text input, rather than its own full-screen flow. Holding it begins recording after explicit microphone permission; sliding away cancels and releasing opens a compact review widget immediately above the composer. The widget shows duration, a coarse waveform/progress treatment, play/pause, discard, and send. Recording starts locally and uploads only after the person confirms Send. Incoming voice notes use the same player but carry a distinct voice-note label and duration.

4. Message actions, search, and signals#

A small, bubble-anchored message menu groups actions by certainty: reactions, Reply, Copy, and Forward/share; then edit/delete and details only when the platform reports support. It avoids a full-width mobile action sheet and repositions above or to the opposite side of a bubble when it would collide with a safe area, keyboard, or screen edge. Conversation search includes Messages, Media, Links, and Files; results reveal a bounded excerpt and jump to the source message. Pins/bookmarks are Claire metadata and must clearly say they do not pin the original message in the source app.

Reply references#

Claire already accepts replyToMessageId on the platform send route and adapters detect inbound replies, but the normalized message row does not yet persist a durable reply link. Add both a local foreign key and the external platform identifier so delayed/out-of-order sync can resolve later without losing the quoted relationship.

ALTER TABLE public.messages
  ADD COLUMN reply_to_message_id UUID REFERENCES public.messages(id) ON DELETE SET NULL,
  ADD COLUMN reply_to_platform_message_id TEXT;

CREATE INDEX messages_reply_target_idx
  ON public.messages (chat_id, reply_to_platform_message_id)
  WHERE reply_to_platform_message_id IS NOT NULL;

Ingestion stores reply_to_platform_message_id immediately, resolvesreply_to_message_id when the referenced row is available, and runs a small scoped reconciliation after later backfill. Every outgoing reply stores its target before the bridge call and emits Matrix's m.relates_to.m.in_reply_to where Matrix is the transport. The rendered quote never requires fetching message content from another account.

Media delivery#

Replace the text-only JSON send body with a two-step flow: prepare a bounded client asset, upload it to an authenticated private staging object, then create an outbound message that references the opaque asset ID. The server revalidates user, session, conversation, capability, MIME signature, byte limit, checksum, and ownership before downloading a short-lived stream and passing bytes to the bridge. Do not place base64 media in JSON, logs, realtime payloads, or the Operations Console.

Pick or record locally
  → inspect size/type/duration and show review
  → POST /media/uploads (authenticated, private, resumable)
  → POST /platforms/:platform/send { chatId, text, replyToMessageId?, assetId? }
  → server verifies capability + asset ownership + limits
  → adapter uploads/sends to Matrix or source network
  → persist outbound row and delivery state
  → realtime confirmation or retryable failure

The Matrix adapter already uploads media but must add reply relation content and complete message metadata. Direct adapters have uneven existing support, so their advertised capability must be tested rather than inferred from a method name. Unsupported paths return a typed platform_capability_unavailable error, not a generic 500.