Skip to content
NerveDocs

Implementation guide

Use @nervekit/contracts for transport-neutral envelopes, catalogs, routing, lifecycle tables, and operation types. Use @nervekit/protocol for message factories, client/server sessions, connection lifecycle, subscriptions, dense batching, notification delivery, and RPC.

A host composition supplies:

  • authenticated transport adapters and peer/target authorization;
  • a catalog-backed operation dispatcher;
  • one dense sequence owner per persisted stream;
  • readStream(stream, fromSeq, limit) and exact-set subscription authorization;
  • snapshot loading and state-first cursor installation;
  • an unsequenced notification publisher;
  • bounded buffers and redacted diagnostics.

In Nerve’s current host, /ws/conversations supplies stream reads directly from conversation-core SQLite and snapshots with lastSequence. /ws/workbench supplies ephemeral workbench notices and snapshot reloads, not durable streams. These mappings belong to the server adapter; generic sessions and replay machinery stay in packages/protocol, and domain schemas stay in packages/contracts.

Producers derive delivery and stream routing from the public-event catalog. They must not allocate sequences for ephemeral events. Persisted append operations validate lifecycle transitions before commit.

A consumer applies a sequenced event before advancing its cursor. On a gap, retention miss, or reducer lifecycle violation, recover the affected stream through a snapshot and resubscribe. Polling may refresh optional presentation data but is not protocol recovery.

Use focused package tests for dense replay/live ordering, subscriptions, snapshots, reconnect, overflow, notify coalescing, migrations, target validation, and clean shutdown.