Host & Participant Identity

Both the host and participants use the same ADJECTIVE-NOUN identity format — uppercase, hyphen-separated, drawn from a wine-themed vocabulary. Examples: TANNIC-BARREL, SILKY-MERLOT, FRUITY-CHAMPAGNE.

Identity format

The vocabulary uses 25 wine adjectives × 25 wine nouns = 625 unique combinations. All words are wine-world terms and are recognisable to French speakers (most are cognates or direct borrowings between French and English).

A unique identity is generated by the function generateIdentity(usedIds?) in back/utils.ts. If somehow all combinations are exhausted, it falls back to WINE-#### (4 random digits).

Side-by-side comparison

	Host	Participant
Identity format	TANNIC-BARREL	SILKY-MERLOT
Generated	Once on first visit (stored in localStorage)	Once on join_session (issued by server)
Also called	Host ID (hostId)	Pseudonym (pseudonym)
URL after connecting	/host?code=1234&id=TANNIC-BARREL	/play?code=1234&id=SILKY-MERLOT
Rejoin event	rejoin_host { hostId }	rejoin_session { pseudonym }
Server response	host:state_snapshot	participant:state_snapshot
localStorage key	sommelierArena:hostId	sommelierArena:rejoin (as { id, code })

Host identity

The host's identity is generated once in the browser by hostStore.ts:

• Stored in localStorage under key sommelierArena:hostId
• Preserved across page refreshes on the same device
• Restorable on a different device by opening the share URL ?id=TANNIC-BARREL

The host's session list in the KV store is indexed under host:TANNIC-BARREL.

Participant identity (pseudonym)

Participants receive their pseudonym from the server when they send join_session. The server guarantees uniqueness within the session (using the same ADJECTIVE-NOUN pool).

The credential is stored in localStorage under sommelierArena:rejoin as { id: "SILKY-MERLOT", code: "1234" }.

Rejoin flow — same browser

On every page load, if the credential exists in localStorage, the client auto-sends the rejoin event as soon as the socket opens:

• Host: rejoin_host { hostId: "TANNIC-BARREL" } → server replies with host:state_snapshot
• Participant: rejoin_session { pseudonym: "SILKY-MERLOT" } → server replies with participant:state_snapshot

No user action is needed.

Rejoin flow — different device

Open the URL that appears in the browser address bar after connecting:

• Host: https://sommelier-arena.ducatillon.net/host?code=1234&id=TANNIC-BARREL
• Participant: https://sommelier-arena.ducatillon.net/play?code=1234&id=SILKY-MERLOT

The ?id= parameter is read on mount by HostApp / ParticipantApp and sets the credential in localStorage before the socket opens.

A participant URL without ?id= (e.g. /play?code=1234) performs a fresh join and assigns a new pseudonym — the session code is pre-filled but the participant joins as a new player.

Share link in SessionCreated

When the host creates a session, the Copy participant link button and share buttons (WhatsApp, iMessage) generate a link in the form:

https://sommelier-arena.ducatillon.net/play?code=1234

Opening this link auto-joins the session without requiring the participant to type the code manually. After joining, their browser address bar updates to include ?id=THEIR-PSEUDONYM for future rejoin.

Session lifecycle & credential cleanup

When the session ends (session:ended event), the frontend clears the sommelierArena:rejoin key from localStorage, so participants cannot rejoin a finished session.