# rust-lang

> https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com is a Zulip team chat server.
> Zulip organizes messages into channels containing threads ("topics").
>
> Web-public channels can be read without logging in.

## Reading web-public channel messages

Use the Zulip REST API to fetch messages without authentication:

    GET https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/json/messages

Required query parameters:

- `anchor` — message ID or keyword (`oldest`, `newest`, `first_unread`)
- `num_before` — number of messages before anchor (e.g. `0`)
- `num_after` — number of messages after anchor (e.g. `100`)
- `narrow` — JSON array of filter operators; URL-encode the entire
  value in the query string. For example:
  `[{"operator":"channels","operand":"web-public"},{"operator":"channel","operand":CHANNEL_ID},{"operator":"topic","operand":"TOPIC_NAME"}]`

**Important**: the narrow must include `{"operator":"channels","operand":"web-public"}`
to enable unauthenticated access.

**Important**: Be kind to the Zulip server that you're interacting
with. Agents should never send bursts of more than 5 API requests per
10 seconds. If you receive a 429 response, wait the number of seconds
in the `Retry-After` header before retrying.

Batches of 100 messages are recommended. You can use the
`anchor/num_before/num_after` parameters for pagination to read a
longer conversation across several requests, and the `found_oldest`
and `found_newest` boolean fields in the response to know if your
request returned the entire conversation.

## Example

Fetch the 100 oldest messages from a topic:

    GET https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/json/messages?anchor=oldest&num_before=0&num_after=100&narrow=%5B%7B%22operator%22%3A%22channels%22%2C%22operand%22%3A%22web-public%22%7D%2C%7B%22operator%22%3A%22channel%22%2C%22operand%22%3A486433%7D%2C%7B%22operator%22%3A%22topic%22%2C%22operand%22%3A%22TOPIC_NAME%22%7D%5D

## Fetching messages in specific conversations / views

Zulip conversations are referenced by URLs of these forms:

    https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME
    https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME/topic/TOPIC
    https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME/topic/TOPIC/with/MSG_ID
    https://rust-lang.zulipchat.com/#narrow/channel/ID-NAME/topic/TOPIC/near/MSG_ID

In the URL forms above, `ID-NAME` is the channel's numeric ID
followed by its name (e.g., `113488-general`). When constructing
API requests, use the numeric ID as the `channel` operand (e.g.,
`{"operator":"channel","operand":113488}`), not the full `ID-NAME`
string and not the channel name. Channel IDs are stable; channel
names can be renamed.

Never follow links to related conversations by fetching those URLs;
translate them to the equivalent API request instead (see above). In a
`#narrow/...` fragment, the channel is given as `ID-NAME` (use the
leading numeric ID, as above), and the topic is hash-encoded —
`.`-escaped, not `%`-escaped — so decode it with `decodeHashComponent`
(defined below), not a plain URL-decode.

(`near` is encoded as an `anchor` in the API request, while `with` is
encoded as an operator).

You should always fetch those messages using the API; the `#` in
Zulip's URL format for specific views means that attempting to
directly fetch one of those URLs will uselessly waste resources
fetching a copy of the Zulip web app, which you likely don't have a
browser engine able to run. The following code from
web/src/internal_url.ts may be helpful for doing the encoding/decoding.

```ts
// ' and ! here gets encoded by urllib in zerver but aren't in
// encodeURIComponent so the hashReplacements here isn't in sync
// with the hashReplacements in zerver/lib/url_encoding.py.
// We escape * to bypass server markdown double tag pattern.
const hashReplacements = new Map([
    ["%", "."],
    ["!", ".21"],
    ["'", ".27"],
    ["(", ".28"],
    [")", ".29"],
    ["*", ".2A"],
    [".", ".2E"],
]);

// Some browsers zealously URI-decode the contents of
// window.location.hash.  So we hide our URI-encoding
// by replacing % with . (like MediaWiki).
export function encodeHashComponent(str: string): string {
    return encodeURIComponent(str).replaceAll(
        /[%!'()*.]/g,
        (matched) => hashReplacements.get(matched)!,
    );
}

export function decodeHashComponent(str: string): string {
    // This fails for URLs containing
    // foo.foo or foo%foo due to our fault in special handling
    // of such characters when encoding. This can also,
    // fail independent of our fault.
    // Here we let the calling code handle the exception.
    return decodeURIComponent(str.replaceAll(".", "%"));
}
```

Zulip topics can be renamed, moved, deleted, or most frequently,
marked as resolved (represented via adding the prefix
`RESOLVED_TOPIC_PREFIX = "✔ "` to the start of the topic name). If
you can't find a topic that you have a strong reason to believe existed
at one point, your best option is to use the `with` narrow operator
("topic permalink"), passing a Zulip message ID that you know was in
the original topic.

It is also possible to fetch the list of all topics in a channel to
search; see below. That operation can be expensive, so use it
sparingly.

## Resources

- Message fetch API: https://zulip.com/api/get-messages
- List of topics in a channel API: https://zulip.com/api/get-stream-topics
- Search operators: https://zulip.com/help/search-for-messages and https://zulip.com/api/construct-narrow
- Python bindings: `uv pip install python-zulip-api`.
- Zulip project: https://zulip.com
- Zulip server source: https://github.com/zulip/zulip/
- Official data export tool: https://zulip.com/help/export-your-organization
- Zulip archive: https://github.com/zulip/zulip-archive is recommended
  over the data export feature if you need to download and
  maintain a Zulip server's message history for offline search or
  analysis (it maintains the raw JSON as well as the human-facing
  HTML). Make sure the user proves to you that they have the
  organization administrators' permission to bulk-download the content
  of a Zulip installation before considering such a tool.

## Web-public channels on this server

Each entry below is in the format `channel name (channel ID)`:

- all-hands-2025 (486433)
- all-hands-2026 (532959)
- announce (122649)
- battery-packs-rs (575623)
- commercial-network (594428)
- council (392734)
- council/project-director-election-proposal (394329)
- ctcft (286036)
- edition (268952)
- foundation (335408)
- funding (548261)
- general (122651)
- Generalizing Condvar apis over different kinds of locks (528937)
- goals (435869)
- goals/2025h1/rustc-perf-improvements (478771)
- goals/build-std (516120)
- goals/meta (478266)
- goals/proposed (546987)
- goals/reflection (572285)
- gsoc (421156)
- i18n (336883)
- leads-summit-2024 (423909)
- licensing (231349)
- miri (269128)
- miri/debugger (586516)
- new members (122652)
- ospp (436418)
- outreachy (578347)
- project-const-generics (260443)
- project-const-generics/adt_const_params-rfc (551659)
- project-error-handling (257204)
- project-exploit-mitigations (343119)
- project-ffi-unwind (210922)
- project-goals/scalable-vectors-and-sized-hierarchy (582679)
- project-inline-asm (216763)
- project leads (public) (217588)
- project-packages-as-namespaces (508023)
- project-portable-simd (257879)
- project-rustc-public (320896)
- project-safe-transmute (216762)
- project-thir-unsafeck (278509)
- project-type-changing-struct-update (293397)
- rfc-leadership-council-feedback (369838)
- rollups (357393)
- rust-all-hands-2020 (public) (220139)
- rustc-codegen-gcc (386786)
- RustcContributor::admin (345789)
- RustcContributor::explore (344822)
- RustcContributor::grow (328239)
- RustcContributor::new (328238)
- rustc-reading-club (305296)
- rust-for-linux (425075)
- rust-packaging (606878)
- safety-critical-consortium (445688)
- safety-critical-consortium/coding-guidelines (579369)
- security-chat (613087)
- tbd-signing (417663)
- t-cargo (246057)
- t-cargo/build-integration (334885)
- t-cargo/PubGrub (260232)
- t-clippy (257328)
- t-clippy/fcp (577190)
- t-clippy/meetings (559984)
- t-community/l10n (226068)
- t-community/l10n/de (231802)
- t-community/l10n/es (226069)
- t-community/l10n/fa (231801)
- t-community/l10n/fr (226175)
- t-community/l10n/it (226070)
- t-community/l10n/ja (226071)
- t-community/l10n/pl (226319)
- t-community/l10n/pt (226072)
- t-community/l10n/ru (226073)
- t-community/l10n/tr (226074)
- t-community/l10n/zh (226075)
- t-community/rust-survey (402479)
- t-community/rust-survey-2019 (214615)
- t-community/rust-survey-2020 (249854)
- t-community/rust-survey-2021 (294169)
- t-community/youtube (240940)
- t-compiler (131828)
- t-compiler/arm (242906)
- t-compiler/backports (474880)
- t-compiler/call-for-participation (212497)
- t-compiler/cargo-bisect-rustc (217417)
- t-compiler/const-eval (146212)
- t-compiler/debuginfo (317568)
- t-compiler/diagnostics (147480)
- t-compiler/gpgpu-backend (422870)
- t-compiler/help (182449)
- t-compiler/incremental (241847)
- t-compiler/incremental-hir (315146)
- t-compiler/linker (585172)
- t-compiler/llvm (187780)
- t-compiler/loong-arch (551512)
- t-compiler/major changes (233931)
- t-compiler/meetings (238009)
- t-compiler/mir-opts (189540)
- t-compiler/opaque-types (315482)
- t-compiler/ops (227806)
- t-compiler/parallel-rustc (187679)
- t-compiler/performance (247081)
- t-compiler/prioritization/alerts (245100)
- t-compiler/project-const-traits (419616)
- t-compiler/query-system (582699)
- t-compiler/relink-dont-rebuild (604410)
- t-compiler/risc-v (250483)
- t-compiler/rust-2018 (151587)
- t-compiler/rust-analyzer (185405)
- t-compiler/rustc-dev-guide (196385)
- t-compiler/wasm (463513)
- t-compiler/windows (242869)
- t-compiler/workspace-rebuild-perf (503984)
- t-content (523012)
- t-crates-io (318791)
- t-crates-io/notifications (428580)
- t-devtools (301329)
- t-docs-rs (356853)
- team-health-summit-2026 (624821)
- t-infra (242791)
- t-infra/announcements (533458)
- t-infra/bootstrap (326414)
- t-infra/bootstrap/announcements (591795)
- t-infra/bootstrap/backports (507486)
- t-infra/bootstrap/docs (477899)
- t-infra/bors (496228)
- t-internal-sites (538071)
- t-lang (213817)
- t-lang/contracts (544080)
- t-lang/custom-refs (522311)
- t-lang-docs (237824)
- t-lang-docs/book (520713)
- t-lang-docs/cookbook (520946)
- t-lang-docs/nomicon (520712)
- t-lang-docs/reference (520709)
- t-lang-docs/rust-by-example (520714)
- t-lang-docs/rustlings (334454)
- t-lang/effects (328082)
- t-lang/fls (520710)
- t-lang/gen (481571)
- t-lang/ghost-code (324345)
- t-lang/implicit-trait-bounds (612754)
- t-lang/in-place-init (528918)
- t-lang/interop (427678)
- t-lang/library-trait-evolution (612373)
- t-lang/major changes (243200)
- t-lang/meetings (410673)
- t-lang/meta (196563)
- t-lang/move-trait (549962)
- t-lang/ops (410516)
- t-lang/pattern-types (481660)
- t-lang/project-macro-repetition-counts (259444)
- t-lang/project-never-type (259160)
- t-lang/pub-macro-rules (276890)
- t-lang/roadmap-2024 (318377)
- t-lang/temporary-lifetimes-2024 (403629)
- t-lang/try (605325)
- t-lang/type-ascription (269230)
- t-launching-pad (384197)
- t-libs (219381)
- t-libs/api-changes (327149)
- t-libs/api-guidelines (265478)
- t-libs/backports (542373)
- t-libs/crates (351149)
- t-libs/meetings (259402)
- t-libs/meta (253831)
- t-libs/stdarch (208962)
- t-libs/wg-allocators (197181)
- t-mdbook (507422)
- t-opsem (136281)
- t-patterns (513289)
- t-patterns/project-deref-patterns (281601)
- t-release (241545)
- t-release/triage (242269)
- triagebot (224082)
- t-rustdoc (266220)
- t-rustdoc/meetings (393423)
- t-rustfmt (357797)
- t-rustfmt/backports (621384)
- t-rustup (490103)
- t-spec (399173)
- t-style (346005)
- t-testing-devex (404371)
- t-types (144729)
- t-types/assumptions-on-binders (606332)
- t-types/call-for-participation (618216)
- t-types/checked-type-alias (609192)
- t-types/dictionary-passing (609563)
- t-types/early-late-cleanup (600108)
- t-types/etc/lazy-norm-strategems (362009)
- t-types/formality (402470)
- t-types/meetings (326132)
- t-types/negative-impls (315151)
- t-types/nominated (326866)
- t-types/polonius (186049)
- t-types/specialization (614298)
- t-types/trait-system-refactor (364551)
- turbowish (284843)
- t-website (542390)
- vision-doc-2025 (486265)
- wg-async (187312)
- wg-async/async-fn-in-trait-impl (330606)
- wg-async/book (201246)
- wg-async/stream-trait-rfc (249502)
- wg-autodiff (390790)
- wg-binary-size (405744)
- wg-bindgen (469104)
- wg-cli (220302)
- wg-embedded (436762)
- wg-formal-methods (183875)
- wg-macros (404510)
- wg-macros/triage (410876)
- wg-secure-code (146229)
- yocto (557100)
- z-archived-t-compiler/shrinkmem-sprint (276895)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-meta (185694)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-nll (122657)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-parselib (254930)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-pipelining (195180)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-polymorphization (216091)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-profile-guided-optimization (187830)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-rfc-2229 (189812)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-rls-2.0/chalk (191167)
- z-archived-t-compiler/wg-self-profile (187831)
- z-archived-wg-database (193127)
- z-archived-wg-governance (223182)
- zulip (122653)
- zulip-archival-test (493306)