1. Live socket
Handwrite
  • Handwrite Regular Accounts
    • Start here — Handwrite for outside developers
    • API specification notes
    • Socket specification notes
    • Account
      • README — GET /api/v1/me
      • README — DELETE /api/v1/me
      • README — GET /api/v1/me/policy
      • README — GET /api/v1/me/usage
      • Account API — README
      • Who this credential acts for
      • Delete the account (after a 30-day grace period)
      • What your teams' and classes' policies allow
      • Your own usage, and what your teams and classes counted
    • Documents
      • README — GET /api/v1/documents
      • README — POST /api/v1/documents
      • README — GET /api/v1/documents/search
      • README — GET /api/v1/documents/{id}
      • README — PATCH /api/v1/documents/{id}
      • README — DELETE /api/v1/documents/{id}
      • README — GET /api/v1/documents/{id}/content
      • README — PUT /api/v1/documents/{id}/content
      • README — POST /api/v1/documents/{id}/live
      • README — GET /api/v1/export
      • Documents API — README
      • List your documents (or shared, or changes since)
      • Create a document
      • Search your own and shared documents
      • A document's metadata
      • Change title, text, content type or language
      • Delete a document (owner)
      • The document's text
      • Replace the text
      • Join the document's live co-editing room
      • Every document you own, with its text
    • Files
      • README — GET /api/v1/documents/{id}/file
      • README — POST /api/v1/documents/{id}/file
      • README — POST /api/v1/documents/{id}/file/commit
      • README — POST /api/v1/documents/{id}/extract
      • Files API — README
      • Download the original file
      • Start uploading the original file
      • Make an uploaded file the document's file
      • Replace the text with the file's text
    • Audio
      • README — GET /api/v1/documents/{id}/audio
      • README — POST /api/v1/audio/stream
      • README — POST /api/v1/audio/speech
      • README — GET /api/v1/voices
      • README — GET /api/v1/quota
      • Audio API — README
      • The whole document as one audio file
      • Stream speech as it's made
      • Speech with word timings (read-along)
      • Voices you can use
      • Characters left, limit, plan and reset time
    • Sharing
      • README — GET /api/v1/documents/{id}/permissions
      • README — POST /api/v1/documents/{id}/permissions
      • README — PATCH /api/v1/documents/{id}/permissions/{principal}
      • README — DELETE /api/v1/documents/{id}/permissions/{principal}
      • README — DELETE /api/v1/documents/{id}/invitations/{inviteId}
      • README — GET /api/v1/invitations
      • README — POST /api/v1/invitations/{id}/accept
      • README — POST /api/v1/invitations/{id}/decline
      • Sharing API — README
      • Who a document is shared with
      • Share by principal, or invite by email (owner)
      • Change someone's role (owner)
      • Remove access (owner, or leave yourself)
      • Cancel a pending invitation (owner)
      • Document invitations to your verified email
      • Accept a document invitation
      • Decline a document invitation
    • Settings
      • README — GET /api/v1/settings
      • README — PATCH /api/v1/settings
      • Settings API — README
      • Synced app and reader settings
      • Change settings (per key, the newer updatedAt wins)
    • Webhooks
      • Incoming webhook delivery — README
      • README — GET /api/v1/webhooks
      • README — POST /api/v1/webhooks
      • README — GET /api/v1/webhooks/{id}
      • README — DELETE /api/v1/webhooks/{id}
      • Webhooks API — README
      • Your webhook endpoints
      • Register an endpoint (up to 10)
      • One endpoint
      • Delete an endpoint (queued retries are dropped)
    • Meta
      • README — GET /api/v1/openapi.json
      • Meta API — README
      • This OpenAPI description
    • OAuth
      • README — POST /api/oauth/token
      • README — POST /api/oauth/revoke
      • OAuth API — README
      • Exchange a code, or refresh
      • Revoke a token (RFC 7009)
    • Live socket
      • Live document socket — README
    • A document or sharing event
  1. Live socket

Live document socket — README

GET wss://live.handwrites.io/doc/{id}?token={roomToken} with WebSocket upgrade.
Use this connection for collaborative text and presence after a successful POST /api/v1/documents/{id}/live. The admission response supplies the authoritative URL, short-lived token and viewer/editor role. Follow Socket specification notes for the complete binary frame contract, close codes and reconnect behavior.

Before connecting#

The caller must be a person with document access, live-editing plan eligibility through a team/class, and policy permission.
Request admission through your authorized backend. Do not place a long-lived API key in the socket URL.
Convert the returned HTTPS URL to WSS and add its room token with URL.searchParams.
Set binaryType = "arraybuffer". A JSON text frame is not valid protocol data.

Minimal transport check#

This verifies a responding transport, not persistence or permission to edit. For a text-only reader, binary [6] subscribes to full-text frames; each server response starts with type 6 followed by a lib0 varString. A real editor should use Yjs synchronization with doc.getText("content") and prevent remote-update echo loops.

Recovery and acceptance checks#

Fetch fresh admission after disconnect and re-sync instead of assuming local state equals the server. Disable editing on a viewer role or readonly; stop after denied or close 4403. Preserve pending local edits after transient failure. Do not blindly replay positional SPLICE frames.
Test two clients against a disposable authorized document: initial text, concurrent edits, non-ASCII/emoji offsets, viewer rejection, access removal and reconnect. REST text writes can return 409 live_session_active while the room is open. The socket protocol does not emit an acknowledgment promising each edit has been durably saved.
Modified at 2026-10-26 12:59:00
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Revoke a token (RFC 7009)
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A document or sharing event
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