Design goals

This page captures the “why” behind libjzx. Keep it short and update it whenever the runtime’s contracts change.

Goals

• Predictable scheduling: bounded work per tick and clear fairness semantics.
• Explicit backpressure: mailboxes should surface overload instead of hiding it.
• Small, stable C ABI: public headers remain C99-compatible and usable from many languages.
• Tight event-loop integration: timers and I/O watchers via libxev.
• Testability: deterministic unit tests plus stress suites for scheduling/supervision.

Non-goals (for now)

TODO: Fill in explicit non-goals (e.g., distributed actors, transparent networking, multi-process clustering).

See also

• Architecture
• Configuration reference
• Deep dive entry points:
  • Runtime core (src/jzx_runtime.c)
  • Stress tool (tools/stress.zig)