Discord

Ember shows your activity in Discord and lets friends join your room through Discord invitations, using the official Discord Social SDK. In Settings > Discord, Show activity shares your status and Allow invitations lets friends join through Discord. Invitations need Show activity on, and the Discord desktop app must be running.

Application setup

The public Ember application ID is 1546980049692135514. Enable Social SDK access for that application in the Discord Developer Portal. Upload src/ui/ember.png as the Rich Presence artwork asset named ember. The owner confirmed this upload on 2026-09-08; its appearance on another account remains part of acceptance. No bot token, client secret, or player OAuth flow is used.

The supplied SDK is 1.10.19337, archive DiscordSocialSdk-1.10.19337.zip, SHA-256 d784097504685953849cc2842561d8a8013326fe0b8df65a1de63ddefde62045. cmake/discord-sdk-pin.json is the authoritative pin. The archive is not committed. CMake verifies its hash and builds from its extracted contents, including the vendor redistribution notice.

Build and package

Build with scripts/build-current.ps1 -DiscordSdkArchive <original archive>, or set SF4E_DISCORD_SDK_ARCHIVE. It enables SF4E_BUILD_DISCORD=ON, and CMake verifies the archive against the pin. The companion is an isolated MSVC x64/C++20 external project; game architecture and compiler standard are unchanged. scripts/build-discord-local.ps1 -RustChecks still runs formatting, Rust tests and Clippy.

Then run scripts/package-team.ps1. It uses build/current and build/current/stage from build-target.json and rejects other folders. The shared inventory requires ember-discord.exe, discord_partner_sdk.dll, discord-build.json, and notices/Discord-SDK.txt. Packaging rejects an unset application ID or missing Discord runtime. Updater and installer validation use the same inventory. The SDK is statically linked only through its import library; its supplied x64 runtime DLL must ship beside the companion. No SDK voice features are used.

Lifecycle and privacy

Launcher owns the companion for the game's lifetime, including offline sessions. Both sides reuse Ember's helper bootstrap and framing: current-user pipe permissions, local-only pipe, process identity checks, inherited random nonce, bounded messages, and worker-thread IO. Presence is a copied snapshot; SDK callbacks enqueue one accepted invite. The game thread validates commands against the current room generation and invitation revision. Companion failure cannot call game teardown.

The companion uses desktop RPC without a Discord login flow. It registers the absolute adjacent Launcher.exe --discord-launch command. Launch registration is refreshed when a new package starts; a per-user launcher guard prevents a second game. A second start from a Discord invite stays silent, because the running copy's companion receives the invite; any other second start says Ember is already running and how to end it in Task Manager. The secret is delivered by the SDK callback, never launch arguments. Rich Presence updates are coalesced, retried with backoff, refreshed after Discord restart, and cleared when disabled or shutting down.

Activity is limited to Starting Ember, In menus, Playing offline, In a room, Queued, Ready, Fighting, and Spectating. It includes elapsed session time and current/configured occupancy. It excludes user-authored room and player names, characters, stages, scores and networking metrics.

A Discord ticket is exactly 127 characters: a five-character prefix (emd1:, or emd2: for a recovery invitation) and unpadded base64url of the existing 91-byte invitation header. Clipboard formats remain supported. The joining client supplies its actual build to the existing authenticated handshake. The host retains enforcement of its build, capability and expiry. Confirmed guests retain the validated invitation in memory and may advertise the same room. Departure, failure, unhealthy coordination, expiry, admission lock, capacity and publication settings suppress invitation advertisement as applicable. Secrets are not persisted in settings or diagnostics.

An accepted invitation waits for the native main-menu gate, network availability and controller assignment. Loading and fights cannot be interrupted. Switching from an existing room or offline play requires an explicit action. A newer invitation invalidates queued actions for its predecessor. Joining the current room is a no-op. New room members remain idle until they choose a table action.

Acceptance checklist

Use the identical packaged build on two PCs and two Discord accounts. Record the package hash, results and any failures. Do not include invitation secrets in evidence.

1. Host an unlocked room. Verify Ember artwork, activity, elapsed time and occupancy in Discord. Invite the second account through Discord. Verify joining while Ember is running and entering idle.
2. Have the guest invite another account or reverse host/guest roles. Verify guest invitation advertisement and the same room occupancy.
3. Close Ember on the joining PC. Accept a fresh invite; verify Launcher starts the game once, injection succeeds, controller readiness is respected, and the room is joined at the main menu.
4. Accept duplicate invitations, replace one pending invite, cancel it, and accept an invite to the current room. Verify no duplicate game or unintended room switch. Then leave the room and accept the same host's invite again without restarting Ember, once from the room and once right after a match. Verify the room is rejoined within a few seconds, the host stays writable, and the guest can queue. IrohRoomIntegrationTest --rejoin (the rejoin case of scripts/test-current-network.ps1) covers the helper side of this, including a departure the room never confirmed.
5. While in another room, offline play, loading and a fight, accept an invite. Verify the pending notice and explicit safe-menu switch. Finish the fight normally before switching.
6. Choose a table, queue and watch. Verify Queued, Ready, Fighting and Spectating states and ordinary gameplay, rematches and spectators.
7. Lock admission and fill capacity. Verify outgoing invitation advertisement disappears and already-shared tickets receive the normal room rejection. Verify expired tickets and a different-build guest are rejected.
8. Toggle each Discord setting. Restart Discord and verify activity restores. Stop the companion during a local test and verify gameplay continues. Close Ember and verify activity and companion exit.
9. Repeat a join and ordinary gameplay across different networks. Record real results separately from local helper, UI, or RPC smoke tests.

The manual DiscordSmokeTest.exe accepts the installed companion path. It briefly publishes Starting Ember, clears activity, and checks launch registration and clean exit. It sends no invitations and does not launch SF4; success is only desktop RPC/lifecycle evidence.