---
title: Reply Context
layout: spec
work-in-progress: true
copyrights:
  -
    name: "Emerson Veenstra"
    email: "ircv3@emersonveenstra.net"
    period: "2023"
---

## Notes for implementing work-in-progress version

This is a work-in-progress specification.

Software implementing this work-in-progress specification MUST NOT use the unprefixed `+reply-context` tag name. Instead, implementations SHOULD use the `+draft/reply-context` tag name to be interoperable with other software implementing a compatible work-in-progress version.

The final version of the specification will use an unprefixed tag name.

## Introduction

The `+reply` tag marks a message as a reply to a previous message, however there is no agreed upon way to display those in clients. This specification explicitly states how clients should display these replies.

## Implementation

When sending a message with a `+reply` client tag, clients SHOULD send a `+draft/reply-context` tag. This tag MUST have one of these values:

- "thread": This value tells the client not to show the reply in the main channel, but add it to a thread.
- "channel": The client shows the reply in the main channel.
- "thread,channel": The client adds the reply to the thread, but also shows the reply in the main channel.