Realtime Messaging

Skinbase Nova messaging now uses Laravel Reverb, Laravel Broadcasting, Laravel Echo, Redis-backed queues, and Laravel Horizon for queue visibility.

v2 capabilities

Presence is exposed through a global presence-messaging channel for inbox-level online state.
Conversation presence still uses the per-thread presence channel so the header can show who is actively viewing the room.
Typing indicators remain ephemeral and Redis-backed.
Read markers are stored on conversation participants and expanded into message_reads for durable receipts.
The conversation list response now includes summary.unread_total for global badge consumers.
Reconnect recovery uses GET /api/messages/{conversation_id}/delta?after_message_id=....
Delta recovery also returns the latest conversation summary and aggregate unread total so the inbox sidebar can heal after a missed conversation.updated broadcast.
Presence heartbeats use POST /api/messages/presence/heartbeat and are intended only to support offline fallback notification logic plus server-side presence awareness.
Message sends are idempotent per sender and conversation when the client retries with the same client_temp_id.
The database also enforces sender-scoped client_temp_id uniqueness so retry races cannot persist duplicate rows.

Set the Reverb, Redis, messaging, and Horizon values in .env.
Run php artisan migrate.
Run npm install if dependencies are not installed.
Start the websocket server with php artisan reverb:start --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8080.
Start queue workers with php artisan queue:work redis --queue=broadcasts,notifications,default --tries=1.
Start the frontend with npm run dev or build assets with npm run build.

Horizon is installed for production queue monitoring and uses dedicated supervisors for broadcasts and notifications alongside the default queue.
The scheduler now runs php artisan horizon:snapshot every five minutes so the dashboard records queue metrics.
On Windows development machines, Horizon itself cannot run because PHP lacks ext-pcntl and ext-posix; that limitation does not affect Linux production deployments.
Use php artisan horizon on Linux-based environments and keep the dashboard behind the viewHorizon gate.

Use BROADCAST_CONNECTION=reverb and QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis.
Keep MESSAGING_REALTIME=true only when Reverb is configured and reachable from the browser.
Terminate TLS in Nginx and proxy websocket traffic to the Reverb process.
Run php artisan reverb:start and php artisan horizon under Supervisor or systemd.
The chat UI falls back to HTTP polling only when realtime is disabled in config.
Database notification fallback now only runs for recipients who are not marked online in messaging presence.

The conversation view loads once via HTTP.
Live message, read, typing, and conversation summary updates arrive over websocket channels.
When the socket reconnects, the client requests deltas from the explicit delta endpoint and merges them idempotently by message id, UUID, and client temp id.
HTTP send retries also reuse the original stored message when client_temp_id matches, preventing duplicate broadcasts during reconnect races.