README.md

A Rust-based multi-agent framework.

Overview

Arbiter is a Rust-based, event-driven multi-agent framework that lets developers orchestrate strongly-typed, high-performance simulations and networked systems.

Arbiter provides the foundational types and traits for building actor-based systems with pluggable networking and lifecycle management. It is designed around a lightweight actor model tailored for discrete-event simulation, automated trading, and complex distributed systems.

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Core Concepts

Arbiter's architecture is built around several key traits and structs that make agent development straightforward:

• Actor: The core execution unit. Contains the agent's internal state and logic.
• LifeCycle: A trait defining the start, stop, and snapshot behavior of an actor.
• Handler<M>: A trait used to implement message-handling logic for specific message types.
• Network: A generalized trait for instantiating and managing connections between parts of the system.
• Runtime: Manages the execution context of the actors, mediating subscriptions and routing messages.

Quick Example

Here is a glimpse of how you can build a simple actor with Arbiter that handles Ping messages:

use arbiter::prelude::*;

#[derive(Debug, Clone)]
pub struct Ping;

#[derive(Debug, Clone)]
pub struct Counter {
    pub count: usize,
}

// Define the actor's lifecycle
impl LifeCycle for Counter {
    type Snapshot = usize;
    type StartMessage = ();
    type StopMessage = ();

    fn on_start(&mut self) -> Self::StartMessage {}
    fn on_stop(&mut self) -> Self::StopMessage {}
    fn snapshot(&self) -> Self::Snapshot { self.count }
}

// Implement message passing logic
impl Handler<Ping> for Counter {
    type Reply = ();

    fn handle(&mut self, _message: &Ping) -> Option<Self::Reply> {
        self.count += 1;
        println!("Counter received Ping. Total: {}", self.count);
        None
    }
}

Documentation

For an in-depth dive into Arbiter's design, extensive examples, and API specifics, please check out our MDBook Documentation.

Contributing

We welcome community contributions! Please see our Contributing Guidelines to get started.