# How invites work

Let us clarify the glossary first:

- A folder is an abstract directory that is synchronized between clients. A folder is not the same as the directory corresponding to it on any particular client, nor is it the same as a DMD.
- DMD, abbrevition for Distributed Mutable Directory, is a physical Tahoe-LAFS mutable directory. Each client has the write capability to their own DMD, and read capabilities to all other client’s DMDs.
- A collective is the set of clients subscribed to a given Magic Folder.

## Invitation Process

Suppose Alice wants to share files with Bob. These are the steps Alice would take.

0. Alice creates a magic-folder with a name, say `/home/alice/Documents/Shared`. She then proceeds to “invite” Bob to the folder. Only Alice as the creator of the folder can invite other people into the folder.
1. Alice would create an unlinked directory and get the write cap. This directory would form the “DMD” of the folder. Let us call it `dmd_write_cap`.
2. Alice would derive a read-only cap from the write cap derived in step #1. Let us call it `dmd_read_cap`.
3. Alice creates a “collective” directory (Alice has write caps to it) and stores an alias corresponds to that directory in her `private/aliases` file. Let us call the write cap to the collective a `collective_write_cap`. Note that there should only be one user who has writecaps to the collective folder, since concurrent writes to a mutable directory by multiple users is not guaranteed to be consistent.
4. Alice derives a read-only cap (`collective_read_cap`) to the collective.
5. Alice stores read-only cap from step #2 in `<collective>/nick` file.
6. To join the collective, Alice sends the string, `collective-read-cap + dmd_write_cap` to Bob.
7. Bob stores the collective_read_cap as “collective_dircap” and the `dmd_write_cap` as the `upload_dircap` in his in config file, `private/magic_folders.yaml`.

At this point Alice has stored Bob’s nick in the collective. (Alice already stored her own nick during the “create” process when she invited herself into the collective).