Runic Gateway

A website + game bridge for private Ultima Online (ServUO) shards.

Runic Gateway is a self-hostable platform that gives a UO shard a public site, wiki, and admin panel — and wires it to the live in-game world so the site can show shard status, economy, IDOCs, player activity, and per-character sheets, and staff can push control commands back into the game. Players get the same public content and self-service on the web or a native Android app. Branding is instance-configurable.

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The pieces

Runic Gateway is five repositories that deploy together but build independently:

Repo	Language	What it is
website	JavaScript (Node + React)	The full-stack app — Express REST API + MariaDB + a React/Vite SPA (public site, wiki, admin panel). This is the thing players and staff actually visit, and the single backend every client talks to.
link	Rust	The uo-link sidecar. Runs next to the shard, terminates a loopback link from the game, and exposes the authenticated WebSocket + REST API the website consumes. The only network-facing half of the bridge.
servuo-plugins	C#	The ServUO plugin — the shard side of the bridge. Compiled by ServUO at boot; dials the sidecar over loopback and emits game events / accepts commands.
Android-app	Kotlin (Jetpack Compose)	The native Android client — public content + player self-service, purely an API client of the website backend. Same features as the browser client minus every admin console. Never touches the sidecar or shard.
docs	Markdown	All project documentation — design docs, the wire-protocol spec, the integration guide, the Android plan, research. Start here when you want the why.

How they fit together

                                                              ┌─▶ browser       same-origin JSON / SSE
ServUO shard  ──loopback TCP,──▶  uo-link sidecar  ──WS + REST──▶  website backend ─┤
(servuo-plugins) newline-JSON      (link, Rust)      bearer-auth   (website, Node)  └─▶ Android app   REST + push (ntfy)

• The shard is never exposed to the internet. It only dials 127.0.0.1. The sidecar is the sole network-facing component, and only the website's backend talks to it.
• The website backend ingests a live event stream from the sidecar (logins, vitals, economy, vendor sales, deaths, IDOC decay, staff audit…) and makes point-in-time REST calls for rosters and character sheets. It then fans that out to browsers over Server-Sent Events — a public channel (safe kinds only) and an admin channel (everything).
• The Android app is just another client of the website backend — it speaks the same public REST API and never talks to the sidecar or shard. It self-configures its server URL on first run, so one build works against any shard, and receives push notifications through the shard's self-hosted ntfy relay (no Google Play Services required).
• Players link a game account to a website account with a one-time in-game code, which is what authorizes character reads. Staff can push town-crier messages and control commands back into the game.

The connection between website and sidecar (URL, shared-secret token, protocol version) is admin-managed in the database, not env — set once in the site's Admin → Shard panel. If the sidecar is absent or the shard is down, every shard surface degrades gracefully.

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Quick start

The core of a live shard is two things running: the website (site + admin) and the link sidecar (the game bridge). The servuo-plugins get deployed into your ServUO server root and compile at shard boot; the Android-app is an optional client you point at your running website — see each repo's README.

1. Website — the site + admin panel

Prereqs: Node.js 20+ and Docker (for MariaDB).

git clone https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/website.git
cd website

# Start a MariaDB the backend can reach
docker run -d --name rg-db -p 3306:3306 \
  -e MARIADB_DATABASE=runic_gateway -e MARIADB_USER=runic \
  -e MARIADB_PASSWORD=devpass -e MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD=rootpass mariadb:11

# Configure + start the backend (terminal 1)
cp server/.env.example server/.env
#   set DB_HOST=127.0.0.1, DB_PORT=3306, DB_USER=runic, DB_PASSWORD=devpass,
#       JWT_SECRET=<anything>, ADMIN_USERNAME=admin, ADMIN_PASSWORD=<your password>
npm run install-server
npm run server            # nodemon → http://localhost:3000

# Start the frontend (terminal 2)
npm run install-client
npm run client            # Vite → http://localhost:5173

Open http://localhost:5173, sign in at /admin/login with the admin credentials you set, then flip Maintenance → Live on the Dashboard. Tables, defaults, and the first admin are created automatically on first boot.

Production (Docker Compose): the website ships a production-shaped docker-compose.yml that pulls prebuilt app + bot images and serves the built SPA from Express — cp .env.example .env, fill it in, then docker compose pull && docker compose up -d. See the website README for the full options.

2. link — the uo-link sidecar

Prereqs: Rust (cargo). Standard cargo crate:

git clone https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/link.git
cd link/sidecar
cargo build --release          # binary at target/release/uo-link-sidecar
cp sidecar.toml.example sidecar.toml   # then edit (bind addrs, shared-secret token)
cargo run --release

Then point the website at it from Admin → Shard: set the sidecar's base URL, WebSocket URL, shared-secret token, and protocol version. Prebuilt Linux + Windows binaries are also cut as a Gitea release on every merge to main.

3. servuo-plugins — the shard side

Deployed as source into your ServUO server root and compiled by ServUO at boot (no build artifact, no CI). It dials the sidecar over loopback. See servuo-plugins for deploy steps and the compatibility notes.

4. Android-app — the native client (optional)

Prereqs: JDK 17 and the Android SDK. A single build works against any shard — the app prompts for your website's URL on first run.

git clone https://gitea.whitlocktech.com/RunicGateway/Android-app.git
cd Android-app
./gradlew assembleDebug        # debug APK → app/build/outputs/apk/debug/
./gradlew installDebug         # install on a connected device / emulator

Kotlin + Jetpack Compose (Material 3), min SDK Android 10 (API 29). It surfaces the same public content and player self-service as the browser — home/status, news, wiki, the shard hub, account linking, character sheets — and opts into push notifications through the shard's self-hosted ntfy relay. See the Android-app README and the design contract in docs/android/PLAN.md.

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Where to go next

• Running / customizing the site → website README (tech stack, API endpoints, env vars, security, branding, Swagger at /api/docs).
• The Android client → Android-app README and docs/android/PLAN.md — the authoritative design contract, milestones, and the push-notification architecture.
• The bridge internals → docs — design docs, the canonical wire-protocol spec, and the integration guide.
• Deploying the sidecar / plugin together → link README and servuo-plugins.

_{Runic Gateway · whitlocktech@gmail.com}