The Link IPC

Local inter-process communication adapters for The Link.

Install

npm install @the-link/ipc

Process

ProcessLink adapts an existing Node.js process IPC channel. The channel may come from fork() or from spawn() with an ipc standard-I/O entry.

import { spawn } from "node:child_process"
import { ProcessLink } from "@the-link/ipc/process"

const child = spawn(process.execPath, ["worker.js"], {
    serialization: "advanced",
    stdio: ["inherit", "inherit", "inherit", "ipc"]
})

const link = new ProcessLink(child)

Inside the child, the current process is the default target:

import { ProcessLink } from "@the-link/ipc/process"

const link = new ProcessLink()

ProcessLink uses the serialization policy selected when the channel was created. It does not create, terminate, or disconnect the process.

Socket

The Socket adapters communicate through a Unix domain socket on POSIX systems or a named pipe on Windows.

import { SocketServer } from "@the-link/ipc/socket-server"

const server = new SocketServer(address)

server.onConnection(link => {
    link.$inbound.subscribe("sum", (left: number, right: number) => left + right)
})

await server.listen()

import { SocketClient } from "@the-link/ipc/socket-client"

const client = new SocketClient(address)

await client.connect()

const total = await client.$outbound.publishFirst<number>("sum", 20, 22)

await client.disconnect()

Socket publications are bidirectional and carry remote results and failures. UTF-8 JSON bytes are used by default. Applications may replace the Socket serialization policy through setSerialize() and setDeserialize().

POSIX sockets use mode 0600 by default. Applications remain responsible for selecting and managing their addresses.

Streams

A ReadableStream in a publication or its result, in either direction, travels as a reference when the application's codec carries streams (such as The Link MessagePack): socket links hand their codec a streams option on every message. Each connection has its own The Link Core StreamRelay, so the chunks follow as their own small messages on the same socket and only as fast as the receiver reads; a large stream never becomes one oversized frame. Streams crossing a connection end with it.

Development

bun install --frozen-lockfile
bun run verify

License

MIT