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recflare/README.md
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Devin Zuczek b7aab05a92 Revise README for clarity and updated instructions
Updated the 'Why?' section for clarity and added details about the project's architecture and limitations. Revised prerequisites and configuration instructions for better readability.
2026-06-30 12:33:06 -04:00

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# RecFlare
RecFlare is an implementation of RecNet — the Rec Room backend — built on
Cloudflare Workers. It implements the network services the Rec Room client talks
to — accounts, auth, rooms, matchmaking, economy, chat, notifications, and more —
each as an independent Worker on its own subdomain.
> **Disclaimer:** This is an unofficial, fan-made project for preservation and
> experimentation. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Rec
> Room Inc. "Rec Room" is a trademark of its respective owner.
## Why?
There are already so many multiplayer clones, why?
1. None of them are fully open source (some had leaks of old code).
2. None of them run on microservice architecture, and crash constantly.
3. "Upgrading the server" is not a lasting fix.
4. Exploits were rampant due to bad code.
5. This was fun (sort of).
RecFlare uses a true microservice architecture which, if developed correctly, is
near infinitely scalable and could support the same number of concurrent users
as the original game. It will never run out of CPU, memory, or disk space.
Being truly open source means that this project should have more eyes on it,
resulting in bugs getting fixed faster. I hope.
Of course, cloud services cost money. That's the only limitation.
## Client
RecFlare is compatible with the
[CannedNet client](https://github.com/djdevin/CannedNet) and the build of Rec
Room with manifest `7859140924515540835`. Other client or game versions may expect
different endpoints and response shapes and are not supported.
See the project page for information on how to mod the game to connect to this server.
## How it works
The Rec Room client discovers every service by fetching an _endpoints document_
from the name-server (`ns`) worker at the apex domain. That document maps each
service to a host like `https://match.<your-domain>`. Every service runs as a
separate Cloudflare Worker attached to its own subdomain, so the client's traffic
fans out across the workers in `apps/`.
Authentication is a Bearer-JWT flow: the `auth` worker issues tokens from
`/connect/token` and owns the shared `accounts` table; every other worker
validates that token on its auth-gated routes.
State is persisted with Cloudflare's storage primitives — the workers are
completely stateless and no data is stored alongside the microservices.
## Services
This is a list of every RecNet service the client discovers, taken from the
service-discovery map in [`apps/ns/src/endpoints.ts`](apps/ns/src/endpoints.ts).
Each is reached at `https://<subdomain>.<your-domain>`. Services with a worker in
`apps/` are implemented here; the rest are advertised in the endpoints document
but not yet backed by a Worker. Not all services are fully implemented.
| Service | Subdomain | Worker | Notes |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------- | ------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Accounts | `accounts` | `accounts` | Player accounts & profile reads/writes (D1) |
| AI | `ai` | — | Not yet implemented |
| API | `api` | `api` | Core Game API — config, social, avatar, rooms, image uploads (D1, R2) |
| Auth | `auth` | `auth` | OAuth token issuance (`/connect/token`); owns the accounts table (D1, KV) |
| BugReporting | `bugreporting` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Cards | `cards` | — | Not yet implemented |
| CDN | `cdn` | `cdn` | Binary CDN — signature blobs & room build data (R2) |
| Chat | `chat` | `chat` | Chat service |
| Clubs | `clubs` | `clubs` | Clubs |
| CMS | `cms` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Commerce | `commerce` | `commerce` | Store / purchase endpoints |
| Data | `data` | — | Not yet implemented |
| DataCollection | `datacollection` | `datacollection` | Client telemetry / analytics sink |
| Discovery | `discovery` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Econ | `econ` | `econ` | Economy & avatar endpoints (separate from `api`) |
| GameLogs | `gamelogs` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Geo | `geo` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Images | `img` | `img` | Image storage & signed delivery (R2) |
| Leaderboard | `leaderboard` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Link | `link` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Lists | `lists` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Matchmaking | `match` | `match` | Matchmaking & per-player presence (D1, KV) |
| Moderation | `moderation` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Notifications | `notify` | `notify` | Real-time notifications over SignalR/WebSockets (Durable Object) |
| PlatformNotifications | `platformnotifications` | — | Not yet implemented |
| PlayerSettings | `playersettings` | `playersettings` | Per-player settings (KV) |
| RoomComments | `roomcomments` | — | Not yet implemented |
| RoomieIntegrations | `roomieintegrations` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Rooms | `rooms` | `rooms` | Room storage & queries; seeds the Dorm & Orientation rooms (D1) |
| Storage | `storage` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Strings | `strings` | — | Not yet implemented |
| StringsCDN | `strings-cdn` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Studio | `studio` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Thorn | `thorn` | — | Not yet implemented |
| Videos | `videos` | — | Not yet implemented |
| WWW | `www` | — | Website host (not a Worker) |
Additionally there is a small `ns` worker itself serves this discovery document
at the apex/`ns` host and isn't listed within it. Each implemented worker has
its own `README.md` under `apps/<name>/` documenting its routes.
## Why Cloudflare?
- **It's free to run a lot of services.** Cloudflare Workers' free tier is keyed
to usage, not to the number of Workers — so whether you deploy 1 service or all
36, the baseline cost is the same. You only start paying once usage crosses the
free-tier limits.
- **It mirrors RecNet's architecture.** Rec Room's backend is a set of
independent microservices, not one monolith. Modeling each service as its own
Worker keeps RecFlare's structure close to the real thing — services scale,
fail, and deploy independently — instead of collapsing everything into a single
giant server.
## Do I have to use Cloudflare?
No. The services are plain [Hono](https://hono.dev) apps, so the request-handling
code isn't tied to Cloudflare and can be deployed to other hosting providers —
AWS (Lambda), Vercel, Netlify, Fly.io, a plain Node/Bun server, and so on.
**However**
The catch is everything _around_ the code. RecFlare leans on Cloudflare for the
deployment and infrastructure layer — custom-domain routing per service, plus the
storage bindings (D1, KV, R2, Durable Objects) the workers use. On another
provider you'll need to provide equivalents (per-service routing, databases,
object storage, a pub/sub or WebSocket layer) and wire up the deployment yourself.
## Prerequisites
- node (modern)
- pnpm
- bun
- jq
- A Cloudflare account with a zone (domain) you control, for deploying
Cloudflare's free plan is good enough for testing (100k requests/day) but the
Rec Room client is pretty chatty. Frequent testing may exhauast that quota.
See https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/pricing/#workers
## Getting Started
**Install dependencies:**
```bash
just install
```
**Configure your custom domain:**
Create a new .env file:
```bash
cp .env.example .env
# edit .env and set RECFLARE_DOMAIN to your domain
```
Or, export it:
```bash
export RECFLARE_DOMAIN=rec.example.com
```
`just deploy` resolves the base domain at deploy time and passes it to wrangler —
each worker is attached to its custom domain via `--domain <subdomain>.<domain>`,
and the base domain is injected as the `DOMAIN` var so the `ns` service-discovery
document and the api share-link base URL are built at runtime. Nothing in version
control is rewritten; committed `wrangler.jsonc` files have no routes.
Per-app subdomain overrides come from
`RECFLARE_SUBDOMAINS` (a JSON object, e.g. `{"playersettings":"settings"}`).
**Run the development microservices:**
@todo This works, but the nameserver document won't use local services. You could still
call each service individually. Each instance of Wrangler runs on a different port number.
```bash
just dev
```
**Deploy all workers:**
```bash
just deploy
```
Deploying requires `wrangler` to be authenticated against your Cloudflare
account (`wrangler login`, or `CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN` / `CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID`
in the environment). Storage resources (D1 databases, KV namespaces, R2 buckets)
must be created and their ids set in each worker's `wrangler.jsonc` — see the
inline comments in those files for the exact `wrangler` commands.
## Repository Structure
- `apps/` - The service workers, one deployable Worker per subdirectory. Each has
its own `README.md`, `wrangler.jsonc`, `src/`, and tests.
- `packages/` - Shared libraries and configuration used across the workers.
- `@repo/hono-helpers` - Hono framework utilities (logging, error handling).
- `@repo/tools` - The `runx` CLI and the `bin/` scripts each worker's
package.json delegates to, so build/test/deploy stays consistent.
- `@repo/typescript-config`, `@repo/oxlint-config` - Shared TS and lint config.
- `turbo/generators/` - `turbo gen` templates for scaffolding new workers/packages.
- `Justfile` - Convenient aliases for common development tasks.
## Available Commands
This repository uses a `Justfile`. Run `just` (or `just --list`) to see every
command. Some key ones:
- `just install` - Install all dependencies.
- `just dev` - Start the dev server (context-aware: runs `bun runx dev`).
- `just build` - Build all workers.
- `just test` - Run tests (vitest).
- `just check` - Check code quality: deps, lint, types, format.
- `just fix` - Fix code issues: deps, lint, format, workers-types.
- `just deploy` - Deploy all workers to your domain.
- `just new-worker` (alias: `just gen`) - Scaffold a new service worker.
- `just new-package` - Scaffold a new shared package.
- `just update deps` - Update dependencies across the monorepo with syncpack.
For a single worker, scope with -F, e.g. `just deploy -F playersettings`.
## FAQ
### What year is this for?
This works with 2023 clients. It has been tested with manifest 7859140924515540835. Other clients may not work.
See the "Client" section above for instructions on how to modify a client to connect to this server.
### Can I run this locally on my PC?
It's not currently supported. But theoretically, you could.
See "Run the development server" above. It may be possible later as Wrangler will mock remote services. YMMV for now.
### Can I use this to make my own server?
Yes, that's the point.
### Can I copy this project and modify it?
Yes, see the (LICENSE)[LICENSE).
I would love if you contributed your changes back.
### Why a monorepo?
The services share types, auth logic, and tooling, so keeping them in one repo
keeps those in sync: `pnpm` workspaces share dependencies, `@repo/` packages
share code, Turborepo runs build/test/lint with a single cached task graph, and
cross-service changes land in one atomic commit.