Command routing macro to allow configuration of each command to its command handler.

Example

Define a router module which uses Commanded.Commands.Router and configures available commands to dispatch:

defmodule BankRouter do
  use Commanded.Commands.Router

  dispatch OpenAccount,
    to: OpenAccountHandler,
    aggregate: BankAccount,
    identity: :account_number
end

The to option determines which module receives the command being dispatched. This command handler module must implement a handle/2 function. It receives the aggregate's state and the command to execute. Usually the command handler module will forward the command to the aggregate.

Once configured, you can either dispatch a command by using the module and specifying the application:

command = %OpenAccount{account_number: "ACC123", initial_balance: 1_000}

:ok = BankRouter.dispatch(command, application: BankApp)

Or, more simply, you should include the router module in your application:

defmodule BankApp do
  use Commanded.Application, otp_app: :my_app

  router MyApp.Router
end

Then dispatch commands using the app:

command = %OpenAccount{account_number: "ACC123", initial_balance: 1_000}

:ok = BankApp.dispatch(command)

Dispatch command directly to an aggregate

You can route a command directly to an aggregate, without requiring an intermediate command handler.

Example

defmodule BankRouter do
  use Commanded.Commands.Router

  # Will route to `BankAccount.open_account/2`
  dispatch OpenAccount, to: BankAccount, identity: :account_number
end

By default, you must define an execute/2 function on the aggregate module, which will be called with the aggregate's state and the command to execute. Using this approach, you must create an execute/2 clause that pattern-matches on each command that the aggregate should handle.

Alternatively, you may specify the name of a function (also receiving both the aggregate state and the command) on your aggregate module to which the command will be dispatched:

Example

defmodule BankRouter do
  use Commanded.Commands.Router

  # Will route to `BankAccount.open_account/2`
  dispatch OpenAccount, to: BankAccount, function: :open_account, identity: :account_number
end

Define aggregate identity

You can define the identity field for an aggregate once using the identify macro. The configured identity will be used for all commands registered to the aggregate, unless overridden by a command registration.

Example

defmodule BankRouter do
  use Commanded.Commands.Router

  identify BankAccount,
    by: :account_number,
    prefix: "bank-account-"

  dispatch OpenAccount, to: BankAccount
end

An optional identity prefix can be used to distinguish between different aggregates that would otherwise share the same identity. As an example you might have a User and a UserPreferences aggregate that you wish to share the same identity. In this scenario you should specify a prefix for each aggregate (e.g. "user-" and "user-preference-").

The prefix is used as the stream identity when appending and reading the aggregate's events: "<identity_prefix><aggregate_uuid>". It can be a string or a zero arity function returning a string.

Consistency

You can choose the consistency guarantee when dispatching a command. The available options are:

• :eventual (default) - don't block command dispatch while waiting for event handlers

  :ok = BankApp.dispatch(command)
  :ok = BankApp.dispatch(command, consistency: :eventual)

• :strong - block command dispatch until all strongly consistent event handlers and process managers have successfully processed all events created by the command.

  Use this when you have event handlers that update read models you need to query immediately after dispatching the command.

  :ok = BankApp.dispatch(command, consistency: :strong)

• Provide an explicit list of event handler and process manager modules (or their configured names), containing only those handlers you'd like to wait for. No other handlers will be awaited on, regardless of their own configured consistency setting.

  :ok = BankApp.dispatch(command, consistency: [ExampleHandler, AnotherHandler])
  :ok = BankApp.dispatch(command, consistency: ["ExampleHandler", "AnotherHandler"])

  Note you cannot opt-in to strong consistency for a handler that has been configured as eventually consistent.

Dispatch return

By default a successful command dispatch will return :ok. You can change this behaviour by specifying a returning option.

The supported options are:

• :aggregate_state - to return the update aggregate state.

• :aggregate_version - to return only the aggregate version.

• :events - to return the resultant domain events. An empty list will be returned if no events were produced.

• :execution_result - to return a Commanded.Commands.ExecutionResult struct containing the aggregate's identity, state, version, and any events produced from the command along with their associated metadata.

• false - don't return anything except an :ok.

Aggregate state

Return the updated aggregate state as part of the dispatch result:

{:ok, %BankAccount{}} = BankApp.dispatch(command, returning: :aggregate_state)

This is useful when you want to immediately return fields from the aggregate's state without requiring an read model projection and waiting for the event(s) to be projected. It may also be appropriate to use this feature for unit tests.

However, be warned that tightly coupling an aggregate's state with read requests may be harmful. It's why CQRS enforces the separation of reads from writes by defining two separate and specialised models.

Aggregate version

You can optionally choose to return the aggregate's version as part of the dispatch result:

{:ok, aggregate_version} = BankApp.dispatch(command, returning: :aggregate_version)

This is useful when you need to wait for an event handler, such as a read model projection, to be up-to-date before querying its data.

Execution results

You can also choose to return the execution result as part of the dispatch result:

alias Commanded.Commands.ExecutionResult

{:ok, %ExecutionResult{} = result} = BankApp.dispatch(command, returning: :execution_result)

Or by setting the default_dispatch_return in your application config file:

# config/config.exs
config :commanded, default_dispatch_return: :execution_result

Use the execution result struct to get information from the events produced from the command.

Metadata

You can associate metadata with all events created by the command.

Supply a map containing key/value pairs comprising the metadata:

:ok = BankApp.dispatch(command, metadata: %{"ip_address" => "127.0.0.1"})