Today's Deep-Dive: Miaou

Welcome to the deep dive the place where we cut through complexity to give you the

essential knowledge you need fast today

We're doing exactly that we're opening up the hood of a really unique piece of

software called now

Now if you're thinking high-cost proprietary tools, well, this isn't it now is open

source

It's a powerful multi-room persistent chat server

You can find right on github our mission today pretty simple give you a clear

beginner friendly way into understanding what makes this platform special

You know both for someone just using it and maybe for a developer looking for a

cool project

But before we really dive in we want to give a shout out to the supporter of this

deep dive

Thinking about hosting something like mal might seem like well a bit much safe

server actually handles exactly this kind of innovative software hosting

They support your digital transformation find out more at

www.safeserver.de and that's a good starting point because we're not just looking

at a simple messenger app here

This is more like a whole communication ecosystem. It's open source. Yeah, but it

offers features you'd usually expect from

Enterprise software things like persistence ways to extend it rich media stuff that

often costs a lot and licensing fees

But here it's all community driven and you get total control over your own data

Okay, let's start with the basics then for someone just looking for a better chat

platform if meow is a chat server

What are the ground rules? Well, fundamentally it's built for flexibility for

communities. It's free to use

Anyone can set up rooms public or private and it's really designed for long-term

use

But there's one really key security rule. You have to be logged into chat

This isn't just some anonymous forum, right that immediately tackles a huge issue

online impersonation accountability

And to make sure identities are verified the sources say it uses oeth to

authentication

Okay, for those of us not living in the server room. What so apt to end like plain

English. Oh, yeah

It's basically the standard way systems delegate identity verification

Think of it like a digital bouncer at a club

Instead of meow itself handling your password. It asks a trusted service like github

or google

Hey, is this person really who they say they are? Hmm. So when you sign in it's

verified and that identity gets linked to that

Persistent history we need to talk about okay

So verified identities that security layer lets us trust the chat history more

Right, which brings us to maybe the core idea persistent and searchable history.

Hmm

Why should someone new to this care about chat being persistent versus you know,

just disappearing?

Oh, it's a huge difference think about standard messengers that knowledge those

discussions poof gone off the screen lost forever

You lose that collective memory meow treats every single conversation every link

shared every decision made as a permanent searchable entry in a database

So you can actually find stuff from months ago. Exactly information shared six

months back is still there still accessible still useful today

that's vital for any team or project that actually values retaining knowledge and

importantly data sovereignty

Knowing your history is yours. It's available not locked away behind some corporate

paywall or subscription fee

Okay, we've got trust. We've got longevity. That's the foundation. But what about

the now?

How does meow make the actual conversation experience better? Let's get into that

feature set. What makes it more than just typing, right?

This is where it really pulls away from basic chat apps

It starts with things like rich markdown formatting good for making text clear

But what really stands out is how it handles content. It doesn't just show links

It like boxes them up nicely. It supports audio and video directly audio and video.

How does it do that?

That's thanks to WebRTC. We can maybe unpack that a bit later

Okay, and crucially for some groups, it's brilliant at handling complex stuff like

code snippets and tables right there in the chat window

Oh, yeah, I've tried pasting code into normal chat. It's a disaster scrambled mess

loss formatting. Exactly

So having proper rendering is a lifesaver for say development teams makes sense

And it's not all serious business either. You've got features like

Starring messages voting on things highlighting important conversations even

embedded games. Hold on embedded games

Really? It's not a much for a serious chat server. I get the persistence and code

stuff, but games

Who's the audience for that mix? That's a fair question. Yeah, it does suggest the

target isn't just you know, buttoned up corporate teams

It might be more for open communities

Maybe dev teams again or special interest groups where there's both intense work

and a strong social side

But the really clever part is how a lot of this stuff is delivered many features

the games

Yeah, but also things like persistent notifications those powerful github hooks for

integrating with code repositories

Let me guess plugins. You got it. They're implemented as plugins

Ah, so the core system stays stable, but people can add whatever functionality they

need precisely that plug-in architecture makes it

Incredibly flexible and customizable those github hooks and bots for instance

They let the chat server become a central hub for tracking development progress

issues code changes

That's serious enterprise level stuff delivered in an open way. Okay. Let's switch

gears a bit

Let's unpack this for the tech folks or people curious about how it works. We've

got all these real-time persistent features

What's actually running the show? What's the tech stack? All right, if you peek

under the hood, it's overwhelmingly JavaScript

The language stats are pretty clear. JavaScript is about

75.7 percent then you've got

SCSS for the styling that's around 16.9 percent. So if you know JavaScript you

basically hold the keys

Okay, let's slow down here though. This technical part can lose people. What's the

absolute core starting with that real-time feel?

Sure, the the core engine is built on Node.js

That's the server-side JavaScript environment handling all the backend logic and to

make the chat instantaneous

Which it absolutely has to be it uses socket.io socket.io

Okay

Yeah, think of socket.io is setting up this like permanent fast lane between the

server and everyone connected it pushes updates out instantly

No need to keep refreshing your browser right handles the speed but persistence you

said history lives forever

Where is that digital archive stored? Good question that involves two main players

the main permanent storage

The heavy-duty database holding all the chat history user settings room data. That's

Postgres goal Postgres

Reliable choice very known for being robust, but Redis is mentioned too for someone

new to this

Why have both Postgres and Redis? What's the difference? Ah, yeah, that's a key

architectural point

Yeah, Postgres will is the long-term archive Redis is all about speed Redis keeps

certain things like maybe who's currently online or

Temporary session information and really fast memory not on the slower disk drive

like Postgres. So it acts as a high-speed cache

The server can grab common info super fast from Redis without having to query the

big Postgres database every single time

Okay, that makes sense speed layer on top of the permanent store

Yeah, and just circling back quickly security and multimedia

We mentioned OAuth 2 is passport.js the tool doing that. Yes, exactly passport.js

is a

Very common trusted piece of middleware for Node.js

It handles that verified sign-in process securely and the video audio right the

last key tech piece there is web RTC web real-time communication

That's the browser technology that lets you set up secure direct connections peer-to-peer

for live audio and video streams

Essential for calls Wow. Okay. So that's a pretty modern and powerful stack gives a

clear roadmap for any developer wanting to maybe contribute

Mm-hmm, which brings us neatly to contributing section for the open source

ecosystem looking at the github repo

It's got what 549 stars 73 forks 22 contributors that feels pretty healthy active.

It's definitely a respectable level of community engagement

Yeah, and getting involved seems fairly straightforward partly because it's mostly

under the MIT license. This means generally it's very permissive

It gives contributors a lot of freedom with what they build and how it can be used

low barrier to entry legally speaking and

For anyone actually thinking about contributing code the developers have laid out

some clear rules

Sort of a how-to guide for contributing responsibly. Okay. What are the must-do

rules if someone wants to submit say a

poll request with a new feature rule number one is basically

Talk first you must go discuss what you plan to do with the team beforehand

They even give active hours like 8 a.m. To 7 p.m. GMT when you can usually find

them in the chat rooms

This avoids people coding something that won't fit or is already being done smart

avoids wasted effort. What's rule two quality control?

You must test your own code thoroughly and run the project's automated test suite

before you even think about submitting it

Discuss first test always makes total sense for something needs to be reliable

Exactly, and remember the plugins we talked about yeah the extensibility, right?

The contribution guidelines even point out. There's a specific channel just for

developing plugins

So if you want to add a significant new capability

Chances are they'll want you to build it as a plug-in. That's actually a great

maybe safer

Way for newer job script is to get involved without potentially breaking the main

platform

Good entry point and if coding isn't your thing right now, but you just want to try

me out

The installation docs are available so you can set up your own server for your own

team or community and get the full experience

Okay, so let's try and wrap this up summing up our deep dive meow isn't just

another chat app. It's way more

It's persistent. It handles rich media. Well, it's built on a solid tech stack like

node Postgres Redis

And that plug-in system makes it super customizable puts control back with the

users

It really is a comprehensive hub designed for you to own your communication data

Which actually leads to a final thought maybe a provocative question for you the

listener

Considering everything we've touched on the sheer range of features from dedicated

web RTC video calls and deep github integration for devs

All the way down to embedded games and voting systems

What kind of really unique maybe complex community or perhaps some non traditional

organization?

Could genuinely leverage every single aspect of a platform as feature-rich as meow

something to think about a great question to ponder as you explore the sources

yourself and

thanks again to safe server for supporting this deep dive if you're looking for

powerful reliable hosting for software like this or need support with

Your digital transformation check them out at

That's all for this deep dive. Keep learning. Keep digging until next time

That's all for this deep dive. Keep learning. Keep digging until next time