adrielc/helios-alpha/golem-fire-and-forget-rust

Fire-and-Forget Agent Invocation (Rust)

Overview

A fire-and-forget call enqueues a method invocation on the target agent and returns immediately without waiting for the result. The target agent processes the invocation asynchronously.

Usage

Every method on the generated <AgentName>Client has a corresponding trigger_ variant:

let counter = CounterAgentClient::get("my-counter".to_string());
 
// Fire-and-forget — returns immediately
counter.trigger_increment();
 
// With arguments
let processor = DataProcessorClient::get("pipeline-1".to_string());
processor.trigger_process_batch(batch_data);

When to Use

• Breaking RPC cycles: If agent A calls agent B and B needs to call back to A, use trigger_ for the callback to avoid deadlocks
• Background work: Enqueue work on another agent without blocking the current agent
• Fan-out: Trigger work on many agents in parallel without waiting for all results
• Event-driven patterns: Notify other agents about events without coupling to their processing time

Example: Breaking a Deadlock

// In AgentA — calls AgentB and waits
let b = AgentBClient::get("b1".to_string());
let result = b.do_work(data).await; // OK: awaited call
 
// In AgentB — notifies AgentA without waiting (would deadlock if awaited)
let a = AgentAClient::get("a1".to_string());
a.trigger_on_work_done(result); // OK: fire-and-forget

CLI Equivalent

From the command line, use --enqueue:

golem agent invoke --enqueue 'counter-agent("my-counter")' \
  'my:comp/counter-agent.{increment}'