Solid Objects: A Ruby on Rails Implementation of Cloudflare's Durable Objects

Solid Objects adapts the Durable Objects programming model for Ruby on Rails, enabling developers to incorporate addressable objects, durable state, serialized execution, alarms, and live client interactions into their regular Rails applications. Unlike traditional setups that may require Redis, a Cloudflare account, or an external actor service, Solid Objects operates directly with the existing MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite database of the application, streamlining development and integration.

Key Features

• Durable State Management: Solid Objects maintains a durable state across different sessions, ensuring that the data persists and can be accessed from any part of the application without needing to instantiate an object first.
• Simple Actor Definitions: Actors can be easily defined using a straightforward Ruby class declaration, enabling methods that can manage their state and handle requests directly.
• Flexible Invocation Options: Actors offer different invocation methods such as synchronous calls, where responses are immediately received, and asynchronous calls for operations that can be processed in the background without requiring a real-time response.

Example Usage

class Counter < SolidObjects::Actor
  attribute :value, default: 0

  def increment(amount: 1)
    self.value += amount
  end
end

# Creating a reference to the Counter actor
counter = Counter.ref("global")
count = counter.increment(amount: 5) # Synchronous call
current_count = counter.value # Accessing the current value

Ordered Delivery & Fencing for Concurrency Management

Every interaction with an actor is queued, ensuring that commands are handled in the order they are received. Solid Objects utilizes fencing to protect data integrity during concurrent operations, thereby preventing stale state from impacting new executions.

Integrated Alarms & Live Updates

Solid Objects supports per-object alarms for timing operations and managing callbacks, while integrating seamlessly with Action Cable and Turbo for real-time updates, allowing applications to push data to clients effortlessly.

Why Choose Solid Objects?

Solid Objects brings the advantages of a sophisticated actor model without the complexity of external services, making it an ideal choice for developers looking to enhance their Rails applications with stateful objects that are both powerful and easy to use. The system is designed to be both robust and developer-friendly, aiming for production-readiness while providing extensive documentation and support for its features.

For more information on getting started, best practices, and detailed API usage, refer to the Solid Objects documentation.

Conclusion

Solid Objects is an innovative approach to integrating Cloudflare's Durable Objects into Ruby on Rails applications, providing essential features that enhance the capability of state management and real-time data processing. This project is still in its early release phase, and feedback is appreciated to improve its functionality and reliability.