Reach
Shipped. Installable spaces, offline viewing, location-aware delivery and nearby notifications are built and live; only server-sent Web Push (v2) is still arriving in phases. What follows is how it works, not where it’s headed.
Everything else in this documentation is about how content is stored, compiled and served. Reach is about the last step: how that content actually arrives in front of a visitor — and increasingly, that visitor is holding a phone.
Reach is organised in three layers, and the layering matters for understanding both how things work and where their limits come from.
The app. PWA and mobile covers delivery: every URL is installable, content stays available offline, and the same machinery serves a space site and the cross-space account app. This layer is about getting content onto the device.
The capabilities. Geolocation and Notifications are device capabilities: things the browser can do for a site, but only with the visitor’s explicit permission. Each page explains how its permission works, what the capability provides, and — importantly — where the operating system draws lines that no website can cross. More capabilities will join this family over time (camera, microphone, audio) following the same pattern: one permission model, one page each.
The behaviours. Proximity is the first of a third kind: not a capability itself, but a composition of capabilities into something meaningful — location plus notifications becomes “tell me when I’m near a place.” Behaviours are where the platform’s content model and the device’s capabilities meet. More will follow (reminders for upcoming events is a natural next one), each built from the same capability building blocks.
The mechanics of all three layers lean directly on choices made far upstream, in the compiled graph and the file-based core.
How permission works, in one paragraph
Capabilities are granted to the device and browser, not to an account — there is nothing to log into and nothing stored about you on a server. Permission is only ever requested on your own gesture: you tap a button, the site explains what it wants in a single combined dialog, and the browser’s own native prompt does the actual asking. Granting is per capability; you can grant location without notifications or vice versa. Revoking happens in your browser or system settings at any time, and the site simply degrades: no location means no distance sorting, no notification permission means silence — never an error, never a nag. Once granted, a capability resumes on your next visit without asking again, because the permission was the gesture.