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Library federation across instances

Library federation lets a Seatmap instance pull library content from another Seatmap instance over HTTP. Use it when you run a self-hosted deployment and want to consume the schema library published from another instance without replicating the publisher’s database.

This page is the user-facing overview. For technical setup steps, contact the Seatmap team or your operator.

Roles

  • Source instance publishes library content. It issues federation access for consumer instances.
  • Consumer instance is configured with the source URL and an access credential. It pulls library content on demand and renders it alongside its own in-instance library entries.

A single instance can be a source, a consumer, or both.

How it works

  1. A global admin on the source instance issues federation access for the consumer.
  2. The consumer’s operator stores the credential and configures the source URL.
  3. When users on the consumer instance browse the library, federated entries appear in the same grid as in-instance entries.
  4. When a user copies a federated venue, the consumer instance fetches the schema and assets from the source over HTTPS, materialises them into the consumer’s database and asset store, and records provenance.

What’s enforced

  • Authentication: every federated request carries the credential. The source verifies it before serving content.
  • Rate limiting: the source instance enforces a per-credential rate limit (default 60 requests per minute, configurable).
  • Audit: every successful and failed pull is recorded for review on the source side.
  • Snapshot semantics: federated copies are frozen at copy time. The consumer owns the copy from that moment forward — source-side updates never propagate.

What is not federated

  • User identity — federation is data-only. Users do not log in across instances.
  • Pricing, events, bookings — same as in-instance library. Layouts only.
  • Multi-source pulls — a consumer instance has at most one configured source in this release.

Operating notes

  • Credentials are revocable but not rotatable. To rotate, revoke the old credential and issue a new one — the consumer must update its configuration.
  • If the source is unreachable, federated entries simply do not appear on the consumer side. In-instance library entries continue to work.
  • Provenance always points to the original source — even if a federated copy is later copied again within the consumer instance, the second-order copy still references the original instance.

See also