aiomoqt - Media over QUIC Transport (MoQT)

aiomoqt is an implementation of MoQT for asyncio, layered on aiopquic.

Overview

aiomoqt implements the MoQT protocol with draft-14 / draft-16 / draft-18 (beta) support, both publish and subscribe roles, H3/WebTransport and raw QUIC transports, and ALPN-based draft negotiation. The architecture extends aiopquic.asyncio.QuicConnectionProtocol. The package ships publisher / subscriber example clients, a benchmark suite, a relay version probe, and a moq-interop-runner-compatible test client.

Features

• H3/WebTransport and raw QUIC transports
• Draft-14 / draft-16 / draft-18 negotiation (ALPN moq-00 / moqt-16 / moqt-18, plus WT-Protocol over H3)
• Draft-16 wire format: delta-encoded param keys, track extensions, unified request/response
• Draft-18 (beta): vi64 varints, uni-stream control pair, per-request bidi streams, Request-ID-less replies — over both raw QUIC and WebTransport
• SubgroupHeader / ObjectDatagram flag encoding, delta-encoded object IDs
• Version-independent control: MOQTRequestError exception across drafts
• Async context manager for session lifecycle
• Sync / async response handling on every control message via wait_response
• High-level publisher: PublishedTrack — stream setup, subgroup writing, pacing
• High-level subscriber: SubscribedTrack — object reassembly, FETCH / JOIN handling
• Pluggable message handlers via register_handler()
• Data publishing via SubgroupHeader streams (ObjectDatagram RX + codec complete; datagram publishing in progress)
• Data reception via on_object_received callback
• Low-level message serialization / deserialization for custom protocol work

Installation

Pure Python, requires Python 3.12+ (tested on 3.12, 3.13, 3.14). For a clean, uv-managed .venv, run ./bootstrap_python.sh; otherwise install into your current environment:

uv pip install aiomoqt    # or: pip install aiomoqt

aiopquic (the QUIC transport) installs as a binary wheel automatically. Only Linux (glibc 2.34+, RHEL 9 / Ubuntu 22.04+) and macOS arm64 have prebuilt wheels; other systems pull aiopquic via sdist and need a C build toolchain — see aiopquic install notes.

Reporting issues

Include the full version report in any issue. It captures aiomoqt, aiopquic, and the picoquic + picotls submodule SHAs aiopquic was built from — useful for diagnosing version-pair mismatches across the stack:

python -m aiomoqt.versions   # or the console script: aiomoqt-versions

Sample output:

aiomoqt:   0.9.7.dev7+g0fa185338 (~/src/aiomoqt/aiomoqt) [2026-06-11 11:57]
aiopquic:  0.3.7.dev12+g6eef9caf6 (~/src/aiopquic/src/aiopquic) [2026-06-11 11:58]
  - picoquic:  1.1.49.2 (d6c5653d) [2026-06-05]
  - picotls:   master (bfa67875) [2026-04-20]

Quick Start

Verify install + relay liveness

Confirm the stack and reach a relay before writing any code (probe exits 0 if any draft handshakes):

python -m aiomoqt.versions

python -m aiomoqt.tools.relay_probe --url moqt://moqx-main.ci.openmoq.org:4433
moqt://moqx-main.ci.openmoq.org:4433              QUIC   ✓  draft-14,draft-16,draft-18  (540ms)

python -m aiomoqt.tools.relay_probe --url https://moqx-main.ci.openmoq.org:4433/moq-relay
https://moqx-main.ci.openmoq.org:4433/moq-relay   H3/WT  ✓  draft-14,draft-16,draft-18  (435ms)

Subscriber

import asyncio
from aiomoqt.client import MOQTClient

def on_object(msg, size, recv_time_ms, group_id=None, subgroup_id=None):
    print(f"g={group_id} obj={msg.object_id} {size}B payload={msg.payload}")

async def main():
    client = MOQTClient('relay.example.com', 443, path='moq',
                         use_quic=True, supported_drafts=16)
    async with client.connect() as session:
        await session.client_session_init()
        session.on_object_received = on_object
        await session.subscribe('ns', 'track', wait_response=True)
        await session.async_closed()

asyncio.run(main())

Publisher

import asyncio
from aiomoqt.client import MOQTClient
from aiomoqt.types import MOQTMessageType
from aiomoqt.messages import SubgroupHeader

async def main():
    client = MOQTClient('relay.example.com', 443, path='moq',
                         use_quic=True, supported_drafts=16)
    client.register_handler(MOQTMessageType.SUBSCRIBE, on_subscribe)
    async with client.connect() as session:
        await session.client_session_init()
        await session.publish_namespace('ns', wait_response=True)
        await session.async_closed()  # serve until closed

async def on_subscribe(session, msg):
    """Called when a subscriber requests a track."""
    ok = session.subscribe_ok(request_msg=msg)
    stream_id = session.open_uni_stream()
    hdr = SubgroupHeader(track_alias=ok.track_alias, group_id=0, subgroup_id=0, publisher_priority=0)
    session.stream_write(stream_id, hdr.serialize().data)
    session.stream_write(stream_id, hdr.next_object(payload=b"hello").data)

asyncio.run(main())

The on_subscribe handler above — stream setup, header serialization, object writing — is wrapped by the higher-level PublishedTrack / SubscribedTrack classes in aiomoqt.track. See *_bench.py examples for typical usage.

Control Message API

Control messages support both sync and async patterns via wait_response:

# Blocking — awaits and returns the response message
resp = await session.subscribe('ns', 'track', wait_response=True)

# Non-blocking — returns request, response arrives via handler
req = await session.subscribe('ns', 'track')

Auth

AUTH_TOKEN rides the SETUP handshake (session-level) and any request message (namespace- or track-level). Values are arbitrary bytes — the codec wraps them in the spec Token structure. Read a peer's token back from the message's parameters.

from aiomoqt.types import SetupParamType, ParamType

# session auth — on the SETUP handshake
await session.client_session_init(parameters={SetupParamType.AUTH_TOKEN: b"session-tok"})

# namespace auth — on PUBLISH_NAMESPACE (or SUBSCRIBE_NAMESPACE)
await session.publish_namespace('ns', parameters={ParamType.AUTH_TOKEN: b"ns-tok"}, wait_response=True)

# track auth — on SUBSCRIBE (also FETCH / PUBLISH)
ok = await session.subscribe('ns', 'track', parameters={ParamType.AUTH_TOKEN: b"track-tok"}, wait_response=True)
print(ok.parameters.get(ParamType.AUTH_TOKEN))   # token echoed by the peer, if any

Examples

Publisher / Subscriber

# Publish (SubgroupHeader streams)
python -m aiomoqt.examples.pub_example moqt://relay.ex.com

# Subscribe
python -m aiomoqt.examples.sub_example moqt://relay.ex.com

# Subscribe + FETCH (join mid-stream)
python -m aiomoqt.examples.join_example moqt://relay.ex.com

Common options: --namespace, --trackname, --path, --debug, --keylogfile. Every tool prints its full option set with -? / --help (note: -h is --host, not help).

Benchmarks

Bench tools take a positional relay URL — moqt://host[:port] for raw QUIC, https://host[:port]/[endpoint] for H3/WebTransport — except loopback_bench, which needs no relay at all:

# Local loopback (canonical stack benchmark, no relay)
python -m aiomoqt.tools.loopback_bench -s 4096 -P 4 -t 20

# Publisher / subscriber through a relay
python -m aiomoqt.tools.pub_bench moqt://relay.ex.com -s 4096 -P 4 -r 120 -t 60
python -m aiomoqt.tools.sub_bench moqt://relay.ex.com

The full tool matrix (two-process, fanout, adaptive ramp), all options, latency methodology (paced vs unpaced, TX budgets), and observed numbers live in PERFORMANCE.md.

Interop Testing

# All tests (draft-14, auto-detected)
python -m aiomoqt.tools.moq_interop_client -r "moqt://relay.ex.com:4433"

# All tests (draft-16)
python -m aiomoqt.tools.moq_interop_client -r "moqt://relay.ex.com:4433" --draft 16

# Single test case
python -m aiomoqt.tools.moq_interop_client -r "moqt://relay.ex.com:4433" -t subscribe-error

# List test cases
python -m aiomoqt.tools.moq_interop_client -l

Relay Probe

Batch liveness + draft-version check: reads a relay list, does a real CLIENT_SETUP / SERVER_SETUP handshake per (endpoint × draft), and writes a JSON status report. Accepts CLI flags, environment variables, or both (CLI overrides env). A single endpoint can also be probed inline with --url (see Quick Start above).

# Probe a relay list once and write a status report (CLI form)
python -m aiomoqt.tools.relay_probe -f relays.json -o status.json

# Same, env form (typical container/daemon deployment)
RELAYS_FILE=relays.json OUTPUT_FILE=status.json python -m aiomoqt.tools.relay_probe

# Long-running monitor: re-probe every 300s
python -m aiomoqt.tools.relay_probe -f relays.json -o status.json --interval 300

WebTransport Server

python -m aiomoqt.examples.server_example --cert cert.pem --key key.pem -p 4433

Example Reference

Interop

Validated against live public relays — OpenMoQ moqx, Meta moxygen, Cloudflare moq-rs, Quicr libquicr, Meetecho imquic, OzU moqtail, Nokia — across draft-14/draft-16/draft-18 and both transports, using the moq-interop-runner cases plus a multi-subscriber pub-sub bench. The full point-in-time matrix lives in PERFORMANCE.md; the relay catalog with per-endpoint notes is tests/relays.json. Red5 Pro was interop-tested in earlier cycles and is currently untested/unverified.

Performance

aiomoqt sits on aiopquic, which sits on picoquic + the kernel UDP path; throughput at this layer is bounded by the layers below. Observed on commodity hardware over loopback: multi-Gbps sustained throughput at ~4 KiB objects with bounded memory under stream churn, and sub-millisecond to low-millisecond latency when paced below saturation. Numbers vary substantially by platform — methodology, observed figures, the paced-vs-unpaced distinction, and TX budget tuning are in PERFORMANCE.md.

Development

git clone https://github.com/gmarzot/aiomoqt.git
cd aiomoqt
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e ".[test]"    # or: pip install -e ".[test]"

# One-time self-signed cert for the loopback server + test_loopback_* suites (skipped if certs/ is absent)
mkdir -p certs && openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -days 3650 -keyout certs/key.pem -out certs/cert.pem -subj "/CN=localhost" -addext "subjectAltName=DNS:localhost,IP:127.0.0.1"

pytest aiomoqt/tests/

Install editable (-e). The standalone bench scripts and the cross-importing loopback tests resolve certs/ and sibling modules relative to the working tree. A non-editable copy in site-packages silently skips the loopback suites with "TLS certs not found in certs/" even when the certs exist. pytest auto-generates certs/ on first run; the openssl line above is only needed for the standalone bench scripts.

Developing against a locally built aiopquic

The PyPI aiopquic wheel is portable (any CPU of the architecture). A locally compiled aiopquic is host-tuned (-O3 -march=native -flto, plus picotls Fusion AES-GCM on x86_64) and is measurably faster — build from source when benchmarking, optimizing, or targeting bare metal.

# Build aiopquic from source (host-tuned by default; AIOPQUIC_WHEEL_BUILD=1 for a portable build)
git clone https://github.com/gmarzot/aiopquic.git
cd aiopquic && git submodule update --init --recursive && ./build_picoquic.sh

With a separate venv per repo, install the local aiopquic into the aiomoqt venv first, so the dependency is already satisfied and no wheel is fetched (re-run it any time the wheel sneaks back in — it replaces the wheel install):

# in the aiomoqt venv:
uv pip install -e ~/aiopquic    # local source, editable — BEFORE aiomoqt
uv pip install -e '.[test]'     # aiopquic already satisfied → no wheel

Confirm the local build is actually in use:

python -c "import aiopquic; print(aiopquic.__file__)"   # must be <repo>/src/aiopquic/…, not …/site-packages/
python -m aiomoqt.versions                              # paths + picoquic/picotls SHAs match your build

Both venvs must use the same Python version. C/Cython changes need a rebuild (./build_picoquic.sh then uv pip install -e ~/aiopquic); pure-Python edits are live.

Known Limitations

• draft-18 is beta. Negotiated by default ((18, 16, 14), newest-first) over raw QUIC and WebTransport, with control, FETCH, and SUBGROUP object delivery validated end to end (including subscribers that join a track which already has objects). Not yet complete: the SUBSCRIBE / PUBLISH subscription-filter still uses the d16 nested form; Track-Properties extensions encode as RFC9000 varints (correct for the small values in use). draft-14 / draft-16 are unaffected and remain the stable path.
• WebTransport fetch / join routing -- four [wt] test variants of FETCH and JOINING_SUBSCRIBE return empty results when the underlying transport is WebTransport. Raw-QUIC variants of the same tests pass and cover the MoQT-level invariant. Tracked separately; affects WT-only consumers of fetch/join.

TODO

• Fix WebTransport fetch / join routing (the 4 [wt] tests currently skipped)
• Track data modules:
  • File transfer (or MOQT File Format?)
  • Interactive chat
  • MSF/LOC media packaging
  • CMSF media packaging
• Simple relay implementation

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please fork the repository, create a branch, and submit a pull request. For major changes, open an issue first.

Resources

• MoQT Specification
• Media Over QUIC Working Group
• MoQ Interop Runner
• aiomoqt GitHub Repository

Author

Giovanni Marzot — gmarzot@marzresearch.net

A Marz Research project.

Acknowledgements

This project takes inspiration from, and has benefited from the great work done by the OpenMOQ/moqx team, and the continued efforts of the MOQ IETF WG.