convergent-replicated-text

Convergent Replicated Text (CR-Text), a delta CRDT for text value state.

• Try the demo
• Check the docs
• Read the specification

Compatibility

• Runtimes: Node >= 22, modern browsers, Bun, Deno, Cloudflare Workers, Edge Runtime.
• Module format: ESM + CommonJS.
• Required globals / APIs: EventTarget, CustomEvent.
• TypeScript: bundled types.

Goals

• Deterministic convergence of the live text projection under asynchronous gossip delivery.
• Consistent behavior across Node, browsers, worker, and edge runtimes.
• Garbage collection possibility without breaking live-text convergence.
• Event-driven API.

Installation

npm install @sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-text
# or
pnpm add @sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-text
# or
yarn add @sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-text
# or
bun add @sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-text
# or
deno add jsr:@sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-text
# or
vlt install jsr:@sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-text

Usage

Copy-paste example

import {
  CRText,
  BeforeInputStreamAdapter,
  ChangeStreamAdapter,
} from '@sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-text'

import { StationClient } from '@sovereignbase/station-client'

const station = new StationClient()
const snapshot = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('state')) ?? undefined
const frontiers = JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem('frontiers')) ?? undefined

const text = new CRText(snapshot)

if (frontiers) {
  void text.garbageCollect(frontiers)
}

text.addEventListener('snapshot', (ev) => {
  void localStorage.setItem('state', JSON.stringify(ev.detail))
})

text.addEventListener('ack', (ev) => {
  void localStorage.setItem('frontiers', JSON.stringify([ev.detail]))
})

const elements = [
  document.getElementById('textarea-element'),
  document.getElementById('input-element'),
  document.getElementById('html-element'),
].filter((element) => element instanceof HTMLElement)

text.addEventListener('change', (event) => {
  for (const element of elements) {
    void ChangeStreamAdapter(event, element, text)
  }
  void text.snapshot()
  void text.acknowledge()
})

for (const element of elements) {
  element instanceof HTMLInputElement || element instanceof HTMLTextAreaElement
    ? (element.value = text.valueOf())
    : (element.textContent = text.valueOf())

  void element.addEventListener(
    'beforeinput',
    (event) => void BeforeInputStreamAdapter(event, text)
  )
}

text.addEventListener('delta', (ev) => {
  void station.relay(ev.detail)
})

station.addEventListener('message', (ev) => {
  void text.merge(ev.detail)
})

Runtime behavior

Validation and errors

• insertAfter() and removeAfter() validate parameter types and throw CRTextError with the stable code BAD_PARAMS for invalid calls.
• insertAfter(-1, text) is the supported way to insert at the beginning of the document.
• Local insertAfter() and removeAfter() emit both delta and change; remote merge() emits change only when the visible text projection changes.
• snapshot() emits a detached snapshot event and acknowledge() emits an acknowledgement frontier event.

Safety and copying semantics

• CRText stores text as grapheme-cluster entries backed by @sovereignbase/convergent-replicated-list.
• toJSON() returns a detached structured-clone-compatible snapshot and toString() serializes that snapshot as JSON.
• valueOf(), Symbol.toPrimitive, iteration, and runtime inspect hooks expose the current visible string projection.
• BeforeInputStreamAdapter() prevents the browser's default DOM mutation and translates beforeinput events into insertAfter() / removeAfter() calls.
• ChangeStreamAdapter() applies change patches to <input>, <textarea>, and contenteditable hosts, restores the caret for focused editable elements during incremental patching, and uses the supplied CRText instance as a full-projection fallback for multi-entry patches.

Convergence and compaction

• The convergence target is the visible text returned by valueOf().
• merge() applies remote CR-List deltas to the underlying replica state while preserving the event-driven CRText surface.
• garbageCollect(frontiers) compacts tombstoned history after acknowledgement frontiers make it safe to do so.

Tests

npm run test

What the current test suite covers:

• Coverage on built dist/**/*.js: 100% statements, 100% branches, 100% functions, and 100% lines.
• Public API surface: CRText, CRTextError, BeforeInputStreamAdapter, translateDOMBeforeInputEvent, and ChangeStreamAdapter.
• CRText invariants: snapshot hydration, string coercion, grapheme-aware insert/remove semantics, event channels, duplicate delta idempotency, and garbage-collection-preserved text convergence.
• DOM adapter behavior for input, textarea, and contenteditable hosts, including selection translation and caret restoration edge paths.
• Deterministic convergence stress for shuffled gossip delivery, replica restarts, and valueOf() equality across replicas after randomized local edits.
• End-to-end runtime matrix:
  • Node ESM
  • Node CJS
  • Bun ESM
  • Bun CJS
  • Deno ESM
  • Cloudflare Workers ESM
  • Edge Runtime ESM
  • Browsers via Playwright: Chromium, Firefox, WebKit, mobile Chrome, mobile Safari

Benchmarks

npm run bench

Last measured on Node v22.14.0 (win32 x64).

| group | scenario | chars | workload | ops | ms | ms/op | ops/sec | | ---------- | ------------------------------------ | -----: | ------------------------------------ | -----: | -------: | ----: | --------: | | throughput | typing / append random article | 12,500 | 1010 append operations | 24,240 | 2,075.09 | 0.09 | 11,681.44 | | throughput | editing / random inserts and deletes | 15,153 | 2000 random insert/remove operations | 24,000 | 3,354.05 | 0.14 | 7,155.53 | | projection | snapshot / toJSON revised article | 15,153 | detached snapshot | 240 | 1,809.78 | 7.54 | 132.61 | | projection | valueOf / materialize current string | 15,153 | string projection | 360 | 1,099.18 | 3.05 | 327.52 |

License

Apache-2.0