Core Architecture: ~2023.7.3

[jalehman]

Agenda

• Discuss the newly introduced Urbit Improvement Proposals system. Before the meeting, please review the UIP format specified in UIP-0001: UIP Purpose and Guidelines.
  • One thing to discuss is that as written, changes that wouldn't affect all runtimes (such as command-line arguments to Vere) don't have a place in the UIP system. Since Vere is a cross-organizational effort, it might be worth adding something outside the standards track for Vere improvements -- or not.
• UIP-0105: Drop Pokes to Dead Agents: This is in Review, we'll be seeking to move to Last Call and begin implementation.
• UIP-0106: Scry over HTTP: Planning on reviewing during the meeting and soliciting feedback. @lukechampine and @belisarius222 to fill TODOs in ahead of the meeting.
• Open PRs that need accompanying UIPs:
  • @philipcmonk https://github.com/urbit/urbit/pull/6041
  • @Fang- https://github.com/urbit/urbit/pull/6598

Notes

[belisarius222]

For dropping pokes to dead agents, one thing to discuss is whether to also drop %boons (ames response messages) to dead agents. A potential alternative could be that when someone gives a %fact to a dead agent, Gall kills the subscription. A %fact can only be given in response to a %watch, so the agent must have existed at some point -- this can only happen for idle agents. This design would either enqueue an +on-agent %kick notification to the agent for when it wakes up (only need one per subscription, so not an unbounded queue), or when asked to suspend the agent, Gall could kick the agent eagerly from all subscriptions, and bidirectionally so the publishing agent no longer tries to give %facts to it. I think if it kicks eagerly, Gall would still need to notify the agent when it's woken back up that its subscriptions were killed -- it could just deliver a new event to the agent notifying it that it had been put to sleep, unless we consider it bad form for agents to know they were ever suspended (I think it's fine for them to know).

[belisarius222]

The outcome of this meeting was that we came to consensus about UIP-0106: Scry over HTTP. The document was updated to reflect the new design and other discussion items. @lukechampine is now beginning work on that.

The other UIPs were not discussed in this meeting. In the next meeting, it would be good to review UIP-0105: Drop Pokes to Dead Agents first, since work is beginning on that now too.