Export and import rooms

Sometimes you want to take a conversation with you — move it to another workspace, archive it locally, share it with a different tenant, or hand it off to compliance. Room export gives you a portable ZIP bundle.

Export#

From the UI#

Chat header → ⋯ menu → Export room. Browser downloads a .zip.

From the CLI#

1

scaiwave room export <room_id> --tenant <tenant-slug> > out.zip

From the API#

1
2
3

curl "$BASE/v1/rooms/$ROOM_ID/export" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -o out.zip

Requires join membership on the room (you must be a member to export). Power level 0 is enough.

What's in the bundle#

1
2

manifest.json            — room metadata + every event
media/<sha256>/<name>    — each media attachment, deduped by content hash

The manifest is a single JSON document with:

• Room metadata (name, topic, type, scope, created_at).
• An ordered list of every event in the room with full content.
• For each foreign sender (federated, bridged, imported-from-export), an _imported_sender block with their display name, avatar, and original FQID. Shadow participants are not created on import — the original author identity is preserved inline rather than polluting the destination tenant's member list.
• Media references by sha256 → matches a file in media/.

Import#

Into the UI#

Workspace settings → Rooms → Import room → drop the zip. Creates a new room in this workspace; you become its creator.

CLI#

1
2
3

scaiwave room import <workspace-slug> \
  --tenant <tenant-slug> \
  --as <participant-id> < bundle.zip

API#

1
2
3
4

curl -X POST "$BASE/v1/rooms/import" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -F "bundle=@bundle.zip" \
  -F "workspace_id=$WS_ID"

Requires create_note permission in the target workspace (the same gate as creating any room).

What import preserves#

• Message bodies and timestamps.
• Original author identities — embedded inline as content._imported_sender (you'll see them in the UI as "[Original: Alice from acme.scaiwave.com]").
• Media — re-uploaded into the destination tenant's storage with the same sha256.
• Reactions, edits, redactions — re-played in order.

What import strips#

• Read markers — they're per-participant; meaningless in a new tenant.
• Sidekick metadata — imported rooms don't carry their sidekick forest.
• do_not_index flag — imported events get do_not_index=True. They never enter the destination's search index. (If you want them indexed, an admin can flip the room's scope and re-run the indexer.)
• Live presence — obviously.

Refused exports / imports#

Room export and import both refuse on:

• room_type=sidekick (sidekick rooms are tied to their parent; export the parent if needed).
• room_type=bridge (state lives on the bridge config, not the room).
• scope_kind=incognito (by design).
• room_type=federated — there's nothing to export, the events live on the foreign server.

The export endpoint returns a 400 with a clear reason in each case.

When to use it#

• Archive a sensitive conversation locally, then close the room.
• Move a project room to a different workspace after a re-org.
• Hand off to compliance as evidence.
• Demo — package a conversation as a portable artifact for documentation or training.

What to not use it for#

• Backup — there's no automatic backup-on-export; if you want reliable backup of all rooms, use the GDPR export job for your tenant (POST /v1/gdpr/export) instead.
• Migration to another product — the manifest format is ScaiWave-specific; nothing else reads it. (We'd love to define an interop format; not yet.)

Where to go next#

• API: Rooms — /export and /import endpoints.
• API: GDPR — for tenant-wide export.