Semaphore is the user messaging service for the Rubin Science Platform. At the moment, it implements a broadcast service where Markdown-formatted messages in a GitHub repository can be displayed on the Rubin Science Platform (such in the homepage, Squareone). It also provides a per-user notification service that allows admins and services to send notifications to users.
The broadcast repository used by the Rubin Science Platform is lsst-sqre/rsp_broadcast.
The primary documentation for Semaphore operators and developers is https://semaphore.lsst.io.
Semaphore's configuration in Phalanx is documented at https://phalanx.lsst.io/applications/semaphore/index.html
The design of Semaphore's broadcast system is written up in SQR-060: Design of the Semaphore user broadcast message system for the Rubin Science Platform. The design of the user notification system is written up in SQR-118: RSP user notifications.
Semaphore is intended to be a general-purpose user messaging service for the Rubin Science Platform. Besides the broadcast service and user notifications, we plan to implement other communication APIs:
- A blogging service, where Rubin Science Platform operators and observatory staff can post news and updates into a standard JSON/RSS feed.