Actor Model

aid: actor-model
url: >-
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/actor-model/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: Actor Model
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
tags:
  - Actor Model
  - Concurrency
  - Distributed Systems
description: >-
  The Actor Model is a mathematical model of concurrent computation where the
  fundamental unit of computation is an actor, an entity that processes messages
  asynchronously and maintains its own private state. It provides a powerful
  abstraction for building highly concurrent and distributed systems, used in
  frameworks like Akka and languages like Erlang.
created: '2025-01-01'
modified: '2026-04-19'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
  - aid: actor-model:actor-model-api
    name: Actor Model API
    tags:
      - Actor Model
      - Concurrency
      - Distributed Systems
      - Supervision
      - Cluster
    properties:
      - type: HumanURL
        url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://api.example.com/actor-system/v1
      - type: OpenAPI
        url: openapi/actor-model.json
      - type: JSONSchema
        url: json-schema/
      - type: JSONStructure
        url: json-structure/
      - type: Examples
        url: examples/
    description: >-
      Reference API for actor lifecycle management, message passing, supervision
      hierarchies, cluster membership, and system health in actor model systems.
      Applicable to frameworks including Akka, Erlang/OTP, Microsoft Orleans, and
      Proto.Actor.
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://doc.akka.io/
  - type: GitHubOrganization
    url: https://github.com/akka
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: rules/actor-model-spectral-rules.yml
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/actor-model-vocabulary.yaml
  - type: NaftikoCapability
    url: capabilities/actor-system-management.yaml
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/actor-model-context.jsonld
features:
  - name: Actor Lifecycle Management
    description: Spawn, monitor, and stop actors with full visibility into current state, mailbox size, and restart history.
    tags:
      - Actor Model
      - Lifecycle
  - name: Message Passing
    description: Send typed messages to actor mailboxes and inspect pending message queues for debugging.
    tags:
      - Actor Model
      - Message Passing
  - name: Supervision Hierarchies
    description: Inspect and query supervisor trees with strategies including one-for-one, one-for-all, and rest-for-one.
    tags:
      - Supervision
      - Fault Tolerance
  - name: Cluster Management
    description: List cluster members, their roles and statuses, and the total actor distribution across nodes.
    tags:
      - Cluster
      - Distributed Systems
  - name: Sharding
    description: Inspect shard partitions, entity counts, and their hosting nodes in sharded cluster topologies.
    tags:
      - Sharding
      - Distributed Systems
  - name: System Health
    description: Monitor actor throughput, error rates, dead letter counts, and overall system health.
    tags:
      - Health
      - Observability
useCases:
  - name: Distributed Platform Operations
    description: Operate and observe distributed actor-based platforms with real-time actor and cluster data.
    tags:
      - Operations
      - Platform
  - name: Fault Tolerance Debugging
    description: Debug supervision hierarchies, mailbox backlogs, and restart cascades in production systems.
    tags:
      - Debugging
      - Fault Tolerance
  - name: AI-Assisted Actor Management
    description: Use MCP-exposed tools to give AI assistants visibility into actor system state for incident response.
    tags:
      - AI
      - MCP
  - name: Concurrency Education
    description: Learn and experiment with actor model patterns through a reference implementation API.
    tags:
      - Education
      - Learning
integrations:
  - name: Akka
    description: Akka (Scala/Java) is the most widely-used actor framework, compatible with these API patterns.
    tags:
      - Akka
      - Scala
  - name: Erlang OTP
    description: Erlang's OTP supervision tree model is the original inspiration for actor-based fault tolerance patterns.
    tags:
      - Erlang
      - OTP
  - name: Microsoft Orleans
    description: Orleans (.NET) virtual actor framework uses grain-based actors with automatic lifecycle management.
    tags:
      - Orleans
      - .NET
solutions:
  - name: Concurrent System Design Reference
    description: Use the Actor Model API as a design reference when building concurrent distributed services.
    tags:
      - Reference
      - Design
  - name: Platform Observability
    description: Integrate actor system management endpoints into monitoring and incident response workflows.
    tags:
      - Observability
      - Monitoring
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]