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Golem Host Functions

Golem Host functions

Golem provides two WIT packages of host functions for accessing Golem-specific functionality on top of the standard WebAssembly system interfaces.

These two packages are:

  • golem:api@0.2.0 - provides access to various aspects of Golem for the workers
  • golem:rpc@0.1.0 - defines the types and functions serving the Worker to Worker communication in Golem

Please check the language specific guidelines to learn the best way to work with these APIs in your language of choice:

This page provides an overview of all the exported functions and types in a language-agnostic way.

Types

An oplog index points to a specific instruction in the worker's history:

/// An index into the persistent log storing all performed operations of a worker
type oplog-index = u64;

The worker id uniquely identifies a worker in the Golem system:

/// Represents a Golem worker
record worker-id {
    component-id: component-id,
    worker-name: string
}

Components are identified by a component id which is in fact a UUID:

/// Represents a Golem component
record component-id {
    uuid: uuid,
}
 
/// UUID
record uuid {
  high-bits: u64,
  low-bits: u64
}

Component versions are unsigned integers:

/// Represents a Golem component's version
type component-version = u64;

Promises

Types

A promise is identified by a promise-id type consisting of the owner worker's identifier and a number that points to the create promise function in the worker's history:

/// A promise ID is a value that can be passed to an external Golem API to complete that promise
/// from an arbitrary external source, while Golem workers can await for this completion.
record promise-id {
    worker-id: worker-id,
    oplog-idx: oplog-index,
}

Functions

The following functions define the promise API:

Function nameDefinitionDescription
create-promisefunc() -> promise-idCreates a new promise and returns its ID
await-promisefunc(promise-id) -> list<u8>Suspends execution until the given promise gets completed, and returns the payload passed to the promise completion.
complete-promisefunc(promise-id, list<u8>)Completes the given promise with the given payload. Returns true if the promise was completed, false if the promise was already completed. The payload is passed to the worker that is awaiting the promise.
delete-promisefunc(promise-id) -> ()Deletes the given promise.

Worker metadata

Types

Worker metadata is described by the following WIT types:

record worker-metadata {
    worker-id: worker-id,
    args: list<string>,
    env: list<tuple<string, string>>,
    status: worker-status,
    component-version: u64,
    retry-count: u64
}
 
enum worker-status {
    /// The worker is running an invoked function
    running,
    /// The worker is ready to run an invoked function
    idle,
    /// An invocation is active but waiting for something (sleeping, waiting for a promise)
    suspended,
    /// The last invocation was interrupted but will be resumed
    interrupted,
    /// The last invocation failed and a retry was scheduled
    retrying,
    /// The last invocation failed and the worker can no longer be used
    failed,
    /// The worker exited after a successful invocation and can no longer be invoked
    exited,
}

Functions

The following functions define the worker metadata API:

Function nameDefinitionDescription
get-worker-metadatafunc(worker-id) -> option<worker-metadata>Returns the metadata of a worker
get-self-metadatafunc() -> worker-metadataReturns the metadata of the worker that calls this function
get-self-urifunc() -> uriReturns a URI that identifies the worker that calls this function

Worker enumeration

The worker enumeration API allows listing all the workers belonging to a specific component. This is a slow operation and should be used for maintenance tasks and not for the core business logic.

Worker enumeration is a WIT resource, providing a method that returns a page of workers each time it is called:

resource get-workers {
    constructor(component-id: component-id, filter: option<worker-any-filter>, precise: bool);
 
    get-next: func() -> option<list<worker-metadata>>;
}

Once get-next returns none, the enumeration is done.

There are two parameters for customizing the worker enumeration:

Filters

An optional filter parameter can be passed to the worker enumeration, with the following definition:

record worker-any-filter {
    filters: list<worker-all-filter>
}

The worker-any-filter matches workers that satisfy any of the listed filters.

record worker-all-filter {
    filters: list<worker-property-filter>
}

A worker-all-filter matches workers only that satisfy all of the listed filters.

variant worker-property-filter {
    name(worker-name-filter),
    status(worker-status-filter),
    version(worker-version-filter),
    created-at(worker-created-at-filter),
    env(worker-env-filter)
}

The worker-name-filter matches workers by one of their properties, such as the worker name, status, version, creation date or environment variables.

Each of these variants take a filter record holding a value and a comparator:

record worker-name-filter {
    comparator: string-filter-comparator,
    value: string
}
 
record worker-status-filter {
    comparator: filter-comparator,
    value: worker-status
}
 
record worker-version-filter {
    comparator: filter-comparator,
    value: u64
}
 
record worker-created-at-filter {
    comparator: filter-comparator,
    value: u64
}
 
record worker-env-filter {
    name: string,
    comparator: string-filter-comparator,
    value: string
}

Where filter-comparator and string-filter-comparator are defined as:

enum filter-comparator {
    equal,
    not-equal,
    greater-equal,
    greater,
    less-equal,
    less
}
 
enum string-filter-comparator {
    equal,
    not-equal,
    like,
    not-like
}

Precise enumeration

The precise flag switches the worker enumeration into a more costly variant which guarantees that every worker metadata returned is the latest one available at the time the result was generated.

When precise is set to false, the enumeration returns the last cached worker metadata available for each worker, which may be lagging behind the actual state of the workers.

Transactions and persistence control

Golem's transaction API allows customizing the execution engine's durability and transactional behaviors. These are low level functions, which are wrapped by SDKs providing a higher level transaction API for each supported language.

Types

Retry policy is defined by the following record:

/// Configures how the executor retries failures
record retry-policy {
    /// The maximum number of retries before the worker becomes permanently failed
    max-attempts: u32,
    /// The minimum delay between retries (applied to the first retry)
    min-delay: duration,
    /// The maximum delay between retries
    max-delay: duration,
    /// Multiplier applied to the delay on each retry to implement exponential backoff
    multiplier: f64
}

It is possible to switch between persistence modes:

/// Configurable persistence level for workers
variant persistence-level {
    persist-nothing,
    persist-remote-side-effects,
    smart
}

Functions

The following functions define the transaction API:

Function nameDefinitionDescription
get-oplog-indexfunc() -> oplog-indexReturns the current position in the persistent op log
set-oplog-indexfunc(oplog-idx: oplog-index) -> ()Makes the current worker travel back in time and continue execution from the given position in the persistent op log.
oplog-commitfunc(replicas: u8) -> ()Blocks the execution until the oplog has been written to at least the specified number of replicas, or the maximum number of replicas if the requested number is higher.
mark-begin-operationfunc() -> oplog-indexMarks the beginning of an atomic operation. In case of a failure within the region selected by mark-begin-operation and mark-end-operation, the whole region will be reexecuted on retry. The end of the region is when mark-end-operation is called with the returned oplog-index.
mark-end-operationfunc(begin: oplog-index) -> ()Commits this atomic operation. After mark-end-operation is called for a given index, further calls with the same parameter will do nothing.
get-retry-policyfunc() -> retry-policyGets the current retry policy associated with the worker
set-retry-policyfunc(policy: retry-policy) -> ()Overrides the current retry policy associated with the worker. Following this call, get-retry-policy will return the new retry policy.
get-oplog-persistence-level func() -> persistence-levelGets the worker's current persistence level.
set-oplog-persistence-levelfunc(new-persistence-level: persistence-level) -> ()Sets the worker's current persistence level. This can increase the performance of execution in cases where durable execution is not required.
get-idempotence-modefunc() -> boolGets the worker's current idempotence mode.
set-idempotence-modefunc(idempotent: bool) -> ()Sets the current idempotence mode. The default is true. True means side-effects are treated idempotent and Golem guarantees at-least-once semantics. In case of false the executor provides at-most-once semantics, failing the worker in case it is not known if the side effect was already executed.
generate-idempotency-keyfunc() -> uuidGenerates a new idempotency key.

Update

The update API enables workers to trigger automatic or manual update of other workers.

Types

Automatic and manual updates are distinguished by the following enum:

/// Describes how to update a worker to a different component version
enum update-mode {
    /// Automatic update tries to recover the worker using the new component version
    /// and may fail if there is a divergence.
    automatic,
 
    /// Manual, snapshot-based update uses a user-defined implementation of the `save-snapshot` interface
    /// to store the worker's state, and a user-defined implementation of the `load-snapshot` interface to
    /// load it into the new version.
    snapshot-based
}

Functions

The following function defines the update API:

Function nameDefinitionDescription
update-workerfunc(worker-id: worker-id, target-version: component-version, mode: update-mode) -> ()Initiates an update attempt for the given worker. The function returns immediately once the request has been processed, not waiting for the worker to get updated.