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GovOPlaN Addresses Module Architecture
Decision
govoplan-addresses owns reusable contact and recipient-source data. Campaigns,
mail, scheduling, portal, postbox, forms, reporting, and other modules consume
address data through core-mediated capabilities and APIs, not by importing
address-module internals.
The implementation reference for contact data is vCard. CardDAV is the primary address-book sync protocol. LDAP/Active Directory, Exchange/Microsoft 365, Google Contacts, CSV/XLSX, LDIF, and batch vCard import/export are connector targets layered on top of the same local model and sync contracts.
Ownership
govoplan-addresses owns:
- scoped address books
- contacts, organizations, households, and postal/email/phone address data
- vCard import/export and vCard-compatible field mapping
- reusable recipient sources and address lists
- contact tags, categories, communication preferences, consent, and legal basis
- deduplication, merge, address quality checks, and suppression lists
- contact provenance, audit history, soft delete, and restore
- external-source bindings, sync state, conflicts, and read-only source markers
It does not own:
- campaign-local recipient snapshots and evidence
- mail transport, mailbox access, or delivery queues
- calendar events or iCalendar event storage
- global identity authentication or authorization decisions
- organization structure or internal function assignments
Scopes
Address books can live in these scopes:
user: personal address books and remembered contactsgroup: team/shared address bookstenant: tenant-wide directories and approved shared listssystem: platform-wide public/shared directories where policy allows it
The scope determines visibility, default permissions, sync credentials, and whether downstream modules may reuse or mutate entries.
Data Model Principles
The canonical model should preserve enough vCard semantics to round-trip common fields:
- name components and formatted names
- nicknames and display names
- email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, URLs, notes, categories
- organizations, titles, roles, departments, and relationships
- birthday/anniversary where allowed by policy
- photos/avatars where storage and privacy policy allow them
- calendar or scheduling addresses where present
- source IDs, revisions, ETags, sync tokens, and provenance
The model should support both normalized query fields and a preserved original representation for import/export and conflict handling.
Capabilities
The first stable capabilities should be:
addresses.recipientSource: return immutable recipient snapshots for campaigns, forms, reporting, and other send/build workflows.addresses.lookup: provide read-only lookup and autocomplete for mail, campaign, scheduling, postbox, portal, and case workflows.addresses.contactWriter: create or update contacts where the caller has a write permission and the target source is local or writable.
Capabilities should use DTOs and source IDs. Consumers must not receive ORM objects or write address tables directly.
Sync Model
Every synced address book should track:
- connector type and external account/source
- external address-book ID and display name
- local address-book scope
- sync direction: read-only, one-way import, one-way export, two-way
- sync token, ETag/revision, last successful sync, last attempted sync
- deleted markers/tombstones
- conflict status and resolution decision
- connector diagnostics and rate-limit/backoff state
Sync conflict UX must show the local value, remote value, source, timestamp, and available action. Silent overwrite is not acceptable.
Connector Direction
Implement connectors in this order:
- vCard import/export and batch import.
- CardDAV address books.
- LDAP/Active Directory read-only directories.
- Exchange/Microsoft 365 and Google Contacts.
- CSV/XLSX/LDIF import mapping profiles.
Connector runtime behavior should reuse shared connector concepts where useful: configured endpoints, credentials, dry-run, diagnostics, rate limits, and audit events.
Cross-Module Integration
Campaigns should consume addresses.recipientSource and freeze snapshots into
campaign versions. Mail should consume addresses.lookup for autocomplete and
"add contact" workflows. Scheduling should use lookup for attendees and
organizers. Portal, postbox, cases, forms, and reporting should link to contact
records by stable IDs while keeping their own domain evidence.
Deferred Work
The following are valuable but not required for the first functional milestone:
- automatic deduplication and merge suggestions
- two-way sync conflict UI
- Microsoft/Google connectors
- household and relationship editing
- advanced consent-policy automation
- contact activity timeline across all modules