actor-channel

Bidirectional actor channels with pub/sub, peer relaying, and RPC.

Installation

npm install @sovereignbase/actor-channel
# or
pnpm add @sovereignbase/actor-channel
# or
yarn add @sovereignbase/actor-channel
# or
bun add @sovereignbase/actor-channel
# or
deno add jsr:@sovereignbase/actor-channel
# or
vlt install jsr:@sovereignbase/actor-channel
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Usage

Actor channel

import { ActorChannel } from '@sovereignbase/actor-channel'

const channel = new ActorChannel<
  'documents',
  { id: string },
  { method: string },
  { result: string }
>()

channel.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  const [topic, message] = event.detail
  console.log(topic, message)
})

channel.addEventListener('response', (event) => {
  const [id, response] = event.detail
  console.log(id, response)
})

channel.subscribe('documents')
channel.publish('documents', { id: 'document-1' })

const requestId = channel.request({ method: 'sync' })
console.log(requestId)

void channel.addBroker('wss://broker.example', true)
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Broker

import { ChannelBroker } from '@sovereignbase/actor-channel'

const broker = new ChannelBroker<
  'documents',
  { id: string },
  { method: string },
  { result: string }
>()

broker.addEventListener('request', (event) => {
  const [request, respond, sender] = event.detail

  if (!request.method) {
    broker.dispatchEvent('violation', {
      violator: sender,
      description: 'Off protocol.',
    })
    return
  }

  respond({ result: request.method })
})

broker.addChannel(socket, { rpcEnabled: true })

// Verify application-level identity using your own protocol and policy.
// Transport authentication is handled separately by HTTPS/WebSocket.
broker.markAuthenticated(socket)

socket.addEventListener('message', (event) => {
  broker.handleMessage(socket, event.data)
})

socket.addEventListener('close', () => {
  broker.deleteChannel(socket)
})
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The transport passed to ChannelBroker must expose send(ArrayBuffer) and readyState. Incoming messages must be provided as ArrayBuffer values.

API

ActorChannel

• rpcAvailable reports whether an RPC-enabled broker is available.
• request(detail) sends a fire-and-forget RPC request and returns its ID.
• publish(topic, detail) publishes locally and to subscribed broker peers.
• subscribe(topic) subscribes the current window to a topic.
• unsubscribe(topic) removes the current window's subscription.
• addBroker(url, rpcEnabled?) repeatedly attempts to acquire a URL-specific Web Lock and maintains the WebSocket while it owns the lock.

ChannelBroker

• addChannel(channel, attachment?) adds a transport with optional metadata, RPC access, and initial subscriptions.
• deleteChannel(channel) removes a transport and its subscriptions.
• markAuthenticated(channel) records that the host application has verified the channel's application-level identity and emits an attachment event. The method is intentionally one-way and provides no unset operation.
• handleMessage(channel, message) handles an encoded client message.
• dispatchEvent(type, detail) dispatches a typed broker event to registered listeners.
• attachment events receive the channel and its updated attachment.
• request events receive the request, a response callback, and the sender.
• violation events receive the violating channel and a description.

Behavior

• ActorChannel is window-only and requires Broadcast Channel, Web Locks, Web Crypto, and WebSocket APIs.
• Same-origin tabs share topic subscription counts and elect at most one connection to each broker URL.
• Broker connections are retried every 10 seconds after closing or when their Web Lock is unavailable.
• Topic subscriptions are forwarded to brokers on the first local subscription and removed after the final local unsubscription.
• Requests are not queued or replayed when no RPC-enabled connection is open.
• rpcAvailable is true when the channel knows of at least one open RPC-enabled broker WebSocket.
• Protocol messages are MessagePack-encoded ArrayBuffer values.
• authenticated does not describe HTTPS/WebSocket transport authentication. The host sets it through markAuthenticated(channel) after verifying an application-level identity with its own protocol, cryptosuite, and policy.
• ChannelBroker uses standard web platform primitives and does not require a specific server framework.

Tests

• Unit and integration tests in Vitest with 100% statement, branch, function, and line coverage.
• Browser E2E tests in Chromium, Firefox, WebKit, Mobile Chromium, Mobile Firefox, and Mobile WebKit.
• ChannelBroker runtime tests in Node.js, Bun, Deno, Vercel Edge Runtime, and Cloudflare Workers (workerd).

License

Apache-2.0