DomoActors-Py

A Production-Ready Actor Model Toolkit for Python

Overview

DomoActors-Py is a sophisticated actor framework for Python that provides:

• Comprehensive Type Hints: Full type annotations with Protocol classes for IDE support and static analysis
• Fault Tolerance: Hierarchical supervision with configurable strategies
• Message-Driven Concurrency: FIFO per-actor mailboxes with async dispatch
• Flexible Addressing: UUIDv7 for distributed systems, numeric for simple scenarios
• Comprehensive Testing: Observable state, await utilities, dead letter listeners
• Zero External Dependencies: Pure Python implementation using only standard library

Project Status

✅ Production Ready - Fully implemented with comprehensive test coverage (197+ tests, 86% coverage)

Complete Feature Set:

• ✅ Core actor model (Actor, Protocol, Stage)
• ✅ Hierarchical supervision (Resume, Restart, Stop, Escalate)
• ✅ Self-messaging patterns with recursive mailbox dispatch
• ✅ Bounded and unbounded mailboxes with overflow policies
• ✅ Lifecycle hooks (before_start, after_stop, before_restart, etc.)
• ✅ Scheduling (one-time and repeating tasks)
• ✅ Dead letters handling
• ✅ Observable state for testing
• ✅ Full parity with DomoActors-TS

Example Applications:

• ✅ Complete banking system with interactive CLI
• ✅ Transaction coordination with retry logic
• ✅ Context-aware error handling

Quick Start

Installation

Install DomoActors-Py from PyPI using pip:

pip install domo-actors

Requirements: Python 3.10 or higher (no external dependencies!)

Alternative: Install from Source

For development or the latest unreleased features:

git clone https://github.com/VaughnVernon/DomoActors-Py.git
cd DomoActors-Py
pip install -e .

Verify Installation

from domo_actors import stage, Actor, Protocol
print("DomoActors-Py installed successfully!")

Basic Example

import asyncio
from domo_actors import Actor, ActorProtocol, Protocol, ProtocolInstantiator
from domo_actors import Definition, stage, Uuid7Address


# 1. Define the protocol interface
class Counter(ActorProtocol):
    async def increment(self) -> None: ...
    async def get_value(self) -> int: ...


# 2. Implement the actor
class CounterActor(Actor):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self._count = 0

    async def increment(self) -> None:
        self._count += 1

    async def get_value(self) -> int:
        return self._count


# 3. Create protocol instantiator
class CounterInstantiator(ProtocolInstantiator):
    def instantiate(self, definition: Definition) -> Actor:
        return CounterActor()


class CounterProtocol(Protocol):
    def type(self) -> str:
        return "Counter"

    def instantiator(self) -> ProtocolInstantiator:
        return CounterInstantiator()


# 4. Use the actor
async def main():
    # Create actor (stage() returns singleton instance)
    counter: Counter = stage().actor_for(
        CounterProtocol(),
        Definition("Counter", Uuid7Address(), ())
    )

    # Use actor
    await counter.increment()
    await counter.increment()
    value = await counter.get_value()
    print(f"Count: {value}")  # Output: Count: 2

    # Cleanup
    await stage().close()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Core Concepts

Actors

Actors are the fundamental unit of computation. They:

• Process messages sequentially through their mailbox
• Maintain private state
• Can create child actors
• Never share state directly

Messages

Messages are asynchronous and delivered via FIFO mailboxes. DomoActors uses a dynamic proxy pattern that automatically converts method calls into messages.

Supervision

Actors are organized in a hierarchy. When an actor fails, its supervisor decides what to do:

• Restart: Create a new instance
• Resume: Continue processing messages
• Stop: Terminate the actor
• Escalate: Pass the decision to the parent supervisor

Lifecycle Hooks

Actors provide lifecycle hooks for customization:

• before_start(): Initialize actor state
• before_stop(): Cleanup before termination
• before_restart(reason): Cleanup before restart
• after_restart(): Re-initialize after restart

Features

Dynamic Proxy Pattern

DomoActors uses Python's __getattr__ magic method to implement a dynamic proxy pattern similar to JavaScript's Proxy API:

# Method calls are automatically converted to messages
await actor.do_something(arg1, arg2)
# Behind the scenes:
# 1. Creates a DeferredPromise
# 2. Wraps call in a LocalMessage
# 3. Enqueues in mailbox
# 4. Returns promise to caller

Mailbox Types

ArrayMailbox: Unbounded FIFO queue

from domo_actors import ArrayMailbox
mailbox = ArrayMailbox()

BoundedMailbox: Capacity-limited with overflow policies

from domo_actors import BoundedMailbox, OverflowPolicy

mailbox = BoundedMailbox(
    capacity=100,
    overflow_policy=OverflowPolicy.DROP_OLDEST
)

Fault Tolerance

Configure supervision strategies:

from domo_actors import DefaultSupervisor, SupervisionStrategy, SupervisionScope

class MySupervisor(DefaultSupervisor):
    async def supervision_strategy(self) -> SupervisionStrategy:
        return CustomStrategy()

class CustomStrategy(SupervisionStrategy):
    def intensity(self) -> int:
        return 5  # Allow 5 restarts

    def period(self) -> int:
        return 10000  # Within 10 seconds

    def scope(self) -> SupervisionScope:
        return SupervisionScope.ONE  # Only failed actor

Scheduling

Schedule tasks using the built-in scheduler:

from datetime import timedelta
from domo_actors import stage

scheduler = stage().scheduler()

# Schedule once
scheduler.schedule_once(
    delay=timedelta(seconds=5),
    action=lambda: print("Executed!")
)

# Schedule repeated
scheduler.schedule_repeat(
    initial_delay=timedelta(seconds=1),
    interval=timedelta(seconds=5),
    action=lambda: print("Tick!")
)

Testing

DomoActors provides testing utilities:

from domo_actors.actors.testkit import await_assert, await_state_value

async def test_actor():
    # Wait for assertion to pass
    await await_assert(
        lambda: assert_something(),
        timeout=2.0
    )

    # Wait for state value
    await await_state_value(
        actor,
        "status",
        "completed",
        timeout=2.0
    )

Examples

See the examples/ directory for complete examples:

Counter Example

Basic actor creation and message passing demonstrating:

• Protocol definition
• Actor implementation
• Message passing
• Async/await patterns

Bank Example (Production-Grade)

A complete banking system with interactive CLI (examples/bank/bank.py) demonstrating:

Core Features:

• Account management (open, deposit, withdraw)
• Inter-account transfers with 5-phase coordination
• Transaction history with self-messaging pattern
• Exponential backoff retry logic

Advanced Patterns:

• Hierarchical actors: Bank → Account → TransactionHistory
• Three supervisor types: BankSupervisor, AccountSupervisor, TransferSupervisor
• Context-aware error handling: Custom error messages with request details
• Self-messaging: Actors sending messages to themselves for state consistency
• "Let it crash" philosophy: Validation errors handled by supervisors

Run the example:

cd examples/bank
python bank.py

The bank example is functionally equivalent to the TypeScript version, demonstrating full parity between implementations.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│         LocalStage                  │
│  ┌───────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │    PrivateRootActor           │  │
│  │      ┌─────────────────────┐  │  │
│  │      │  PublicRootActor    │  │  │
│  │      │    ┌──────────┐     │  │  │
│  │      │    │  User    │     │  │  │
│  │      │    │  Actors  │     │  │  │
│  │      │    └──────────┘     │  │  │
│  │      └─────────────────────┘  │  │
│  └───────────────────────────────┘  │
│                                     │
│  Directory (Actor Registry)         │
│  Scheduler                          │
│  DeadLetters                        │
│  Supervisors                        │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Design Principles

1. Correctness First: Type-safe interfaces, strict async/await patterns
2. Fault Tolerance: Hierarchical supervision
3. Developer Productivity: Protocol interfaces, lifecycle hooks, testing utilities
4. Zero Dependencies: Pure Python using only standard library

Comparison with TypeScript Version

DomoActors-Py is a faithful port of DomoActors-TS with Python-specific adaptations:

Feature	TypeScript	Python
Proxy Pattern	ES6 Proxy API	__getattr__ magic method
Async Model	Promises	asyncio Futures
Concurrency	Single-threaded event loop (async/await)	Single-threaded event loop (async/await)
Type System	Compile-time static typing	Runtime type hints (PEP 484)
Type Checking	Built-in (tsc)	Optional tools (mypy, pyright)
IDE Support	Full IntelliSense	Full IntelliSense with type hints
Stage Access	stage() singleton	stage() singleton
Mailbox Dispatch	Recursive dispatch	Recursive dispatch
Self-Messaging	this.selfAs<T>()	self.self_as(T)
Supervision	Hierarchical supervisors	Hierarchical supervisors
Collections	Map/Set	dict/set
Actor Lifecycle	Hooks (beforeStart, etc.)	Hooks (before_start, etc.)

Architectural Parity

Both implementations share the same core architecture:

• Actor hierarchy: PrivateRootActor → PublicRootActor → User actors
• Supervision strategies: Resume, Restart, Stop, Escalate
• Message delivery: FIFO per-actor mailboxes
• Address types: UUIDv7 for distributed, numeric for simple scenarios
• Zero external dependencies: Both use only standard library features

Python-Specific Features

• Context managers: Can use async with for resource management
• Type hints: Comprehensive PEP 484 type annotations throughout the codebase
• Static type checking: Compatible with mypy, pyright, and IDE type checkers
• Protocol classes: Structural typing similar to TypeScript interfaces
• AsyncIO integration: Native asyncio support, works with existing async code
• Testing: pytest-asyncio integration for async test cases

Concurrency Model

DomoActors-Py uses single-threaded async/await, just like JavaScript/TypeScript:

# Single event loop thread
async def actor_method(self):
    await self.some_operation()  # Yields to event loop
    # Continues on same thread

Key Points:

• ✅ Single-threaded event loop (like JavaScript)
• ✅ Cooperative multitasking at await points
• ✅ No parallelism, only concurrency
• ✅ Actors process messages sequentially
• ✅ Perfect parity with DomoActors-TS behavior

Note: Python does support multi-threading (threading module) and multi-processing (multiprocessing module), but DomoActors-Py uses pure asyncio to maintain identical semantics with the TypeScript version.

Type Hints and Static Analysis

DomoActors-Py includes comprehensive type hints:

# Full type annotations
def actor_for(
    self,
    protocol: Protocol,
    definition: Definition,
    parent: Optional[Actor] = None,
    supervisor_name: Optional[str] = None
) -> T:
    ...

# Generic type variables
T = TypeVar('T')

# Protocol classes for structural typing
class Counter(ActorProtocol):
    async def increment(self) -> None: ...
    async def get_value(self) -> int: ...

Benefits:

• ✅ IDE autocomplete and IntelliSense
• ✅ Catch type errors before runtime with mypy/pyright
• ✅ Self-documenting code
• ✅ Refactoring safety

Check types statically:

mypy domo_actors  # Type check the library

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or higher
• No external dependencies for core functionality
• pytest and pytest-asyncio for running tests

Development

# Install dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Format code
black domo_actors tests examples

# Type check
mypy domo_actors

# Lint
ruff check domo_actors tests examples

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Add tests for new functionality
4. Ensure all tests pass
5. Submit a pull request

Support

• Issues: https://github.com/VaughnVernon/DomoActors-Py/issues
• Discussions: https://github.com/VaughnVernon/DomoActors-Py/discussions
• Documentation: See docs/ directory

Acknowledgments

DomoActors-Py is inspired by and builds upon concepts from:

• XOOM/Actors (Java actor framework by Vaughn Vernon)
• DomoActors-TS (TypeScript version)

License

GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 (LGPL-3.0)

See: ./LICENSE.md

Copyright © 2012-2026 Vaughn Vernon. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2012-2026 Kalele, Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Creator and Author

Vaughn Vernon

• Creator of the XOOM Platform
  • Product conceived 10 years before GenAI was hip hype
  • Docs
  • Actors Docs
  • Reference implementation in Java
• Books:
  • Implementing Domain-Driven Design
  • Reactive Messaging Patterns with the Actor Model
  • Domain-Driven Design Distilled
  • Strategic Monoliths and Microservices
• Live and In-Person Training:
  • Implementing Domain-Driven Design and others
• LiveLessons video training:
  • Domain-Driven Design Distilled
    • Available on the O'Reilly Learning Platform
  • Strategic Monoliths and Microservices
    • Available on the O'Reilly Learning Platform
• Curator and Editor: Pearson Addison-Wesley Signature Series
  • Vaughn Vernon Signature Series
• Personal website: https://vaughnvernon.com