Integrate chat support with live WebSocket streaming by vikasbolla · Pull Request #127 · IBM/power-access-cloud

vikasbolla · 2026-07-23T09:52:42Z

This PR integrates a real-time chat support system that allows users to contact admins directly from the power-access-cloud UI.

User chat widget — users can open a chat panel, send messages, view history, and end conversations. The connection is maintained over WebSocket so messages are delivered instantly without polling.
Admin chat panel — admins can see all active conversations with live unread indicators, open any conversation to read the full history, reply in real time, and end conversations on behalf of users.
WebSocket infrastructure — an in-memory pub/sub hub routes messages between the user's session goroutine and the admin's session goroutine without any database polling. Admin replies reach the user's browser in microseconds.
Persistent history — all messages are stored in MongoDB. When a user reconnects or navigates back to the chat, their full conversation history is restored. Ended conversations are recorded with a sentinel so the state survives server restarts.
Async DB writes — admin replies are written to the database via a background worker queue so the admin UI never blocks waiting for a DB round trip.

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T05:59:08Z

+		UserID:         userID,
+		Username:       username,
+		Message:        EndedSentinel,
+		Sender:         models.SenderSystem,


Shouldn't we have a record of who ended the conversation? the admin or user? Recording it as system, we won't know who ended it.

This can be taken up as an enhancement.

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T06:42:21Z

+					{Key: fieldUserID, Value: "$" + fieldUserID},
+					{Key: fieldConversationID, Value: "$" + fieldConversationID},
+				}},
+				{Key: "message_count", Value: bson.D{{Key: "$sum", Value: 1}}},


Can we add a small comment helping us understanding the pipeline. This seems like, it loads one message per conversation when the admin window loads.

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T06:45:33Z

+
+// Sender constants for ChatMessage.Sender.
+const (
+	SenderUser   = "user"


Just a suggestion, the best way to do this was declaring a type
type SenderType string (you may choose a better name)
then
SenderType User, Admin,System.
It's better coding standards. Thanks!

Makes sense, changed it, thanks

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T07:13:44Z

+		// non-fatal: treat as not ended
+	}
+
+	history, err := dbCon.GetChatMessages(ctx, userID, conversationID)


Please help me understand, does this load all the chat messages at once, or does it load a set of messages as and when we scroll in the frontend UI?

Currently it loads all the chat messages at once. But it is a good point, as I think when conversation are very long, it might be better to load when user scrolls in UI. Maybe we can take it as a enhacement

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T07:15:09Z

+		zap.String("userID", userID),
+		zap.Int64("conversationID", conversationID),
+		zap.Int("history_len", len(history)))
+


Please add a comment explaining incomingFromAdminCh.

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T10:41:35Z

+}
+
+// AdminReplyToConversation inserts an admin message into an existing conversation.
+func (db *MongoDB) AdminReplyToConversation(ctx context.Context, msg *models.ChatMessage) error {


Both the InsertChatMessage and AdminReplyToConversation are the same, except for the context that is being passed, we can try combining it, rather than keeping duplicate code

Right, have modified it, thanks

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T10:46:40Z

+// published to, so a single admin WS can receive notifications for all convs.
+const adminBroadcastKey = "admin:broadcast"
+
+var hub = &chatHub{


I want to understand, why a slice of channels is necessary, let's discuss once. If not required, we can pick it up as an enhancement in a different PR.

GunaKKIBM · 2026-07-31T10:59:33Z

Added minor comments, certain changes do not impact the functionality, I think the same can be addressed. Others can be taken up incrementally. Thank you for the PR!

Signed-off-by: Vikas <vikas.satyanarayana.bolla@ibm.com>

vikasbolla force-pushed the integrate_chatbot branch 4 times, most recently from 9e3fdf8 to 2d16be6 Compare July 30, 2026 09:16

vikasbolla force-pushed the integrate_chatbot branch from 2d16be6 to 89b3a36 Compare July 30, 2026 09:54

GunaKKIBM reviewed Jul 31, 2026

View reviewed changes

Integrate chat support with live WebSocket streaming

0531a67

Signed-off-by: Vikas <vikas.satyanarayana.bolla@ibm.com>

vikasbolla force-pushed the integrate_chatbot branch from 89b3a36 to 0531a67 Compare August 1, 2026 03:25

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vikasbolla commented Jul 23, 2026

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GunaKKIBM commented Jul 31, 2026

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