Architecture

Slither is a thin BEAM/Python coordination layer built on SnakeBridge and Snakepit.

Core Primitives

• Store: ETS-backed shared state with lock-free reads and serialized writes.
• Dispatch: bounded batched fan-out with backpressure.
• Pipe: stage composition over BEAM and Python work.

Runtime Model

• Python runs in worker processes managed by Snakepit.
• BEAM owns shared state and orchestration.
• Python workers call BEAM-exposed views through SnakeBridge callbacks.

Supervision

The Slither application supervisor starts:

• Task.Supervisor for loaders
• Slither.Bridge.ViewRegistry
• Slither.Store.Supervisor
• Slither.Pipe.Supervisor

See lib/slither/application.ex.

Dataflow

1. Input payloads are wrapped as Slither.Item.
2. Pipe.Runner creates context/session and executes stages.
3. Python stages route through Slither.Dispatch and executors.
4. Router stages split outputs into named buckets.

Isolation Model

• Shared mutable state in Python is worker-local by process.
• Cross-worker merges happen on BEAM side in a deterministic single-process path.
• Backpressure is enforced with bounded max_in_flight concurrency.

Where to Go Next

• Store details: guides/store.md
• Dispatch details: guides/dispatch.md
• Pipe DSL: guides/pipe.md