Publish-Subscribe (Pubsub) Backends

Overview

Pubsub backends handle all the internal messaging between Will's core components. They're designed to be lightweight, reliable, and ephemeral - a lot like our brain's working memory.

Will supports the following options for pubsub backend:

Choosing a backend

Right now, you're stuck with Redis. :)

Setting your backends

To set your pubsub backend, just update the following in config.py

PUBSUB_BACKEND = "redis"  # "redis", or "zeromq" (beta).

Contributing a new backend

Writing a new pubsub backend is fairly straightforward - simply subclass BasePubSub, and implement:

  1. the four required methods, and
  2. a bootstrap method.
from will.backends.pubsub.base import BasePubSub


class MyCustomPubsubBackend(BasePubSub):
    """A custom pubsub backend using the latest, greatest framework.

    You'll need to provide a GREAT_API_KEY to use it.

    """"
    required_settings = [
        {
            "name": "GREAT_API_KEY",
            "obtain_at": """1. Go to greatamazingframework.com/api
2. Click "Generate API Key"
3. Copy that key, and set it in your Will.
""",
        },
    ]

    def __init__(self, settings):
        # Do whatever I need to do to kick off the backend.

    def do_subscribe(self, topic):
        """
        Registers with the backend to only get messages matching a specific topic.
        Where possible, wildcards are allowed
        """
        raise NotImplementedError

    def do_unsubscribe(self, topic):
        """Unregisters with the backend for a given topic."""
        raise NotImplementedError

    def publish_to_backend(self, topic, str):
        """Publishes a string to the backend with a given topic."""
        raise NotImplementedError

    def get_from_backend(self):
        """
        Gets the latest pending message from the backend (FIFO).
        Returns None if no messages are pending, and is expected *not* to be blocking.
        """
        raise NotImplementedError

def bootstrap(settings)
    MyCustomPubsubBackend(settings)

From there, just test it out, and submit a pull request!

That's it for Will's pubsub backends. He can also remember things long-term. For that, read up on his long-term memory (storage).