Macula SDK
Erlang/OTP client SDK for the Macula HTTP/3 mesh
Latest — 9.13.2: every supervised primitive pair is now complete and symmetric, each wrapping its raw SDK primitive as an OTP behaviour with a
simple_one_for_onefactory supervisor, mesh-visible protocol facts (sharing.*_v1,streaming.*_v1,rpc.*_v1) around its own side of the operation, and both a pooled and a direct-dial (resolve + one-hop dial) mode:
- RPC —
macula_request/macula_response, unary call/reply.- Pub/Sub —
macula_publisher/macula_subscriber, publish and per-publisher-ordered subscribe.- Content sharing —
macula_feeder/macula_download, built on the addressablemacula_content_transferprimitive: a genuinely peer-visible cancel (a real QUICRESET_STREAM, not a local kill), pause/resume between chunks, and parallel multi-stream chunk transfer.- Streaming RPC —
macula_streamer/macula_stream_sink, server / client / bidi modes, with an optionalclient_streamreceive loop and terminal-reply callback, and abort-wired cancel.- NEW: push-initiated content transfer —
macula_pusher/macula_uploadpush a file at a specific, already-known recipient (rather than into content-addressed storage for someone to discover and pull later), with the same chunk/hash/verify integrity guarantees, overclient_stream.All additive since 9.2.0, no breaking changes. See CHANGELOG.md for the full version-by-version history.
What is Macula?
Macula is an Erlang/OTP client SDK for building applications on a mesh of stations — realm-agnostic relays that route over QUIC (HTTP/3) and form a Kademlia DHT. Your service or daemon connects outbound to one or more stations: no open ports, NAT-friendly, no VPN. It provides:
- RPC (request/response) — discover a provider in the DHT, then dial its serving station directly (one hop), with optional realm-CA trust verification.
- Pub/Sub — topic-based event fan-out across stations, with per-publisher ordered delivery.
- Content — content-addressed sharing and live streaming (MCID).
- DHT records — signed, TTL'd records (advertisements, endpoints, more).
- Erlang distribution over mesh —
net_adm:pingacross firewalls, no VPN. - Identity — Ed25519 keypairs, UCAN tokens, DID documents (NIF-accelerated).
- MRI — typed, hierarchical resource identifiers.
- Zero-config LAN clustering — UDP-multicast gossip.
The station (routing, DHT, SWIM, peering) is a separate repo, macula-station; this package is the client you build against.
Quick Start
Add to rebar.config:
{deps, [{macula, "~> 9.13"}]}.
Or in Elixir mix.exs:
defp deps do
[{:macula, "~> 9.13"}]
end
application:ensure_all_started(macula),
%% Connect a pool to one or more stations (seed URLs). The pool owns one
%% QUIC link per seed, reconnecting and replaying subscriptions as needed.
{ok, Pool} = macula:connect([<<"quic://boot.macula.io:443">>], #{}),
%% A realm is a 32-byte tag derived from a name; it scopes every call.
Realm = macula_realm:id(<<"io.example.myapp">>),
%% Subscribe (delivers {macula_event, Ref, Topic, Payload, Meta} to a pid),
{ok, Ref} = macula:subscribe(Pool, Realm, <<"sensors.temperature">>, self()),
%% or subscribe with a callback fun(Topic, Payload, Meta):
{ok, Ref2} = macula:subscribe_callback(
Pool, Realm, <<"sensors.temperature">>,
fun(_Topic, Payload, _Meta) -> io:format("~p~n", [Payload]) end),
%% Publish. Entity IDs go in the PAYLOAD, never in the topic.
ok = macula:publish(Pool, Realm, <<"sensors.temperature">>,
#{sensor => <<"kitchen">>, value => 23.5}),
%% Advertise an RPC procedure (open to any identified caller here),
ok = macula:advertise(Pool, Realm, <<"math.add">>,
fun(#{<<"a">> := A, <<"b">> := B}) -> {ok, A + B} end,
#{}),
%% Call it — the SDK resolves the provider and dials its station directly.
{ok, 5} = macula:call(Pool, Realm, <<"math.add">>,
#{<<"a">> => 2, <<"b">> => 3}, 5_000).
Identity and Crypto (NIF-accelerated)
Rust NIFs with pure-Erlang fallbacks:
%% Ed25519 keypair (a #{public := _, private := _} map)
KP = macula_identity:generate(),
Sig = macula_identity:sign(<<"hello">>, KP),
true = macula_identity:verify(<<"hello">>, Sig, macula_identity:public(KP)),
%% BLAKE3 hashing
Hash = macula_blake3_nif:hash(Data),
%% UCAN capability tokens + DID documents
{ok, Token} = macula_ucan_nif:create(Issuer, Audience, Caps, PrivKey),
{ok, Payload} = macula_ucan_nif:verify(Token, PubKey).
Documentation
| Guide | Description |
|---|---|
| Connecting | Pools, seeds, TLS policy, reconnection |
| PubSub Guide | Fan-out + per-publisher delivery ordering |
| PubSub Protocol | Raw subscribe/publish primitives |
| Topic Naming | Event-type topics, IDs in payloads |
| RPC Guide | Direct-dial request/response |
| RPC Protocol | Raw advertise/call primitives, error codes |
| Content Guide | Content-addressed blobs (MCID), push/upload |
| Content Protocol | Raw put_content/get_content, MCID format, discovery |
| Records Guide | Signed, TTL'd facts in the DHT — your own record types |
| Streaming Guide | Streaming RPC (server / client / bidi) |
| Streaming Protocol | Raw call_stream/advertise_stream primitives |
| Distribution Over Mesh | Erlang dist through the mesh |
| Clustering | LAN gossip clustering |
| Authorization | DID / UCAN / cert-chain trust |
| MRI Guide | Resource identifiers |
| Development | Building and testing |
| Glossary | Terminology |
The station server lives in macula-station.
Related Projects
| Project | Description |
|---|---|
| macula-station | The station: DHT, SWIM, routing, peering |
| macula-realm | Managed-realm identity + certificate authority |
| macula-mri-khepri | Distributed MRI persistence (Khepri/Raft) |
| macula-ecosystem | Documentation hub |
License
Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.
Built with the BEAM