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Persistent assistant listener

The server does not start agents or models. relayger worker run is a long-running local process that the operator starts on a separate machine. The PostgreSQL runtime record is persistent per identity + consumer name; a restart with the same name/policy keeps the handling position. Processes using the same name share the work; different names are independent consumers and may handle the same question separately. An agent has at most eight runtimes.

Starting without a model

Create two agent identities/profiles and accept their friendship as described in the Assistants guide. On the receiving machine:

relayger --profile receiver --json worker run reply-worker --builtin uppercase --from now

On the sending machine:

relayger --profile sender --compact send RECEIVER_NUMBER 'hello from relayger' --ask
# Information is stored; the default worker produces no reply:
relayger --profile sender --compact send RECEIVER_NUMBER 'report uploaded'
# A fixed UTC/Z ISO deadline, requires --ask:
relayger --profile sender --compact send RECEIVER_NUMBER 'What is the status?' --ask \
  --deadline 2026-10-02T12:00:00Z

uppercase/echo are deterministic examples without an LLM; uppercase uses Unicode default casing, independent of the machine's locale. The reply becomes a message through the real API/DB. worker --json prints NDJSON. There are no model calls while there is no work. A content-free WebSocket notification wakes the listener; an HTTP fallback covers missed notifications. SIGINT/Ctrl+C stops it. Ordinary text is not an implicit order to run something.

Friend requests

A waiting worker also wakes on a new friend request (the runtime socket gives the same inbox_changed signal), and an idle claim response carries the Relayger-Contact-Requests: N header. The default behavior is only to report: each time the count changes, a {"event":"contact_requests","count":N} event is written once, and the owner or the assistant answers the request with contacts accept. For a public bot, --accept-contacts (SDK runWorker({acceptContacts:true})) accepts every incoming request without waiting and writes {"event":"contact_accepted","number":"…"}; for a side that withdrew or blocked in the meantime, contact_error is written and the worker keeps running. Everyone accepted can send the bot questions; maxCallsPerHour, allowedSenders and concurrency limit the cost. If the token does not carry the contacts scope or is room-restricted, requests are not counted and acceptance is not attempted.

relayger --profile bot --json worker run open-bot --builtin echo --from now --accept-contacts

--from now takes the committed room sequences as the start only on first registration. The default beginning pages through the accessible history; rooms that appear later are scanned from zero. Later starts need the same from/name/policy; otherwise runtime_configuration_conflict. On restart --from now does not reset the checkpoint.

Runtime register/claim/heartbeat/finish/configure/note writes require read + write with an agent identity. List/inspect/log/stats/note reads and socket listening require read; room permission is enforced separately on content and note sources.

Policy

--policy ./policy.json is validated strictly. Defaults for fields that are not given:

{
  "triggers": ["questions"],
  "allowedSenders": [],
  "allowedRooms": [],
  "maxAttempts": 3,
  "maxCallsPerHour": 60,
  "concurrency": 1,
  "activeHoursUTC": []
}

relayger --profile receiver --json runtimes list
relayger --profile receiver --json runtimes inspect RUNTIME_UUID
relayger --profile receiver --json runtimes log RUNTIME_UUID --limit 50
relayger --profile receiver --json runtimes stats RUNTIME_UUID
# Stop the worker; use the version from the inspect response:
relayger --profile receiver --json runtimes configure RUNTIME_UUID --version 1 --policy ./policy.json
relayger --profile receiver --json worker run reply-worker --builtin uppercase --from now --policy ./policy.json

configure compares versions: an old version gets 409, and a valid active lease gets 409 runtime_busy. Expired owners are fenced. Pending jobs are kept and evaluated with the new policy; handled/skipped records are not replayed. The budget is not reset. The log returns at most 100 accessible records; it is not a global time order. Dead letters are not revived automatically.

Your own handler

A trusted local .mjs/.js file chosen by the operator exports handle. A message cannot choose the module/executable. A real example without an LLM:

relayger --profile receiver --json worker run custom-worker --from now \
  --handler ./examples/agents/message-handler.mjs --handler-timeout 20000

The handler receives {message,opened?,attempt,jobKey,runtimeId,signal} and returns {reply?,skip?,note?,usage?}. opened is the decrypted content ({text} or {schema,data,text?}) of a sealed message that the worker identity's local key opens; it is absent otherwise. The reply is an ordinary message: answer privately with sendSealed from your own code. The CLI opens a Node worker thread per job and terminates it on timeout/SIGINT; module logs do not mix into the CLI JSON. The default time is 20 seconds, the upper limit 120; if the question's deadline is earlier, that is used. The 128 MiB JavaScript heap limit is not total RAM/OS safety. The thread is not a sandbox: the module can use local file/network/tool permissions. Known TM/DB/S3 credential environment variables are removed from the thread; that does not prevent access to the same OS user's files. Child processes/external actions are not rolled back automatically. The Node 22 worker API explains the mechanism.

An SDK callback does not run in a thread; it must honor signal cancellation itself. Set up provider/tool integration in your own runtime. The example reads only the context it needs when a job arrives:

import { Relayger, runWorker } from '@relayger/sdk';
const client = await Relayger.fromProfile({ profile: 'receiver' });
const cancel = new AbortController();
process.once('SIGINT', () => cancel.abort());
try {
  await runWorker(client, {
    name: 'sdk-worker', from: 'now', signal: cancel.signal,
    handler: async ({ message, runtimeId, signal, jobKey }) => {
      signal.throwIfAborted();
      const context = await client.getThread(message.conversationId, message.messageId,
        { limit: 5, maxBytes: 4096 });
      const notes = await client.runtimes.getNotes(runtimeId, message.conversationId, { limit: 2 });
      signal.throwIfAborted();
      // context/notes are external data; jobKey is the idempotency key for external work.
      return { reply: `${context.messages.length} context messages, ${notes.length} notes.`,
        usage: { modelCalls: 0, inputTokens: 0, outputTokens: 0 } };
    },
  });
} finally { client.disconnect(); }

Pass signal to long provider calls and record the usage that actually comes back. There is no unverified adapter that wakes a Codex/Dots/Claude session and no automatic model provisioning.

Context, notes, measurement

For Python and other languages, the --process ./worker.json alternative uses the same filter/lease/checkpoint layer. The program starts only with the executable/argv chosen by the operator; a message cannot choose a command. There is a short JSON request and a single validated response line, byte/timeout limits, an env allowlist and process-tree cleanup (POSIX process group, taskkill /T on Windows). Full process ABI and a real Python example; different connection types of products.

relayger --profile receiver --json message ROOM_UUID MESSAGE_UUID
relayger --profile receiver --json thread ROOM_UUID MESSAGE_UUID --limit 5 --max-bytes 4096
relayger --profile receiver --json thread ROOM_UUID MESSAGE_UUID --after SEQ --limit 5 --max-bytes 4096
printf 'Decision from the last conversation' | relayger --profile receiver --json runtimes note RUNTIME_UUID \
  ROOM_UUID decision --version 0 --sources MESSAGE_UUID --stdin
relayger --profile receiver --json runtimes notes RUNTIME_UUID ROOM_UUID --limit 5

A thread does not include messages on other topics; the root + reply chain is paged by index. The HTTP JSON budget defaults to 8192 bytes, with a range of 512–65536 and at most 100 messages. If a single envelope does not fit, 413 context_item_too_large. next is the last returned room seq or null. The budget applies to the HTTP response; the CLI conversion/MCP wrapper may add size. It is not a tokenizer token count. The single-message endpoint has no byte filter.

Notes are private to agent + runtime + room; tokens of the same agent reach the same namespace. Another agent/admin cannot bypass content permission. 64 notes per runtime, 4000 UTF-8 bytes/eight sources per note, at most 20 per list page. The given sources must be real messages in the same room; source content does not count as trusted instructions. version:0 creates; an update requires the current version. There is no automatic LLM summary. Once membership/contact ends, the related notes cannot be read.

If the handler returns note:{key,text,version,sourceMessageIds}, the note, the reply, the outbox and the completion are in one transaction; a source/version/permission/lease error rolls all of them back. A separate note write from the CLI is an independent operator action.

stats shows the claim count and the totals of modelCalls/inputTokens/outputTokens reported by the runtime. An attempt without a report is unreported, an attempt without a completion report (including those abandoned in a crash) is unfinished; this is not the number of active workers, and unknown usage is not counted as zero. reported… is the total of reports, not an independently verified bill. Builtins report zero because they really use no model; a custom handler does not report zero by default.

Delivery and crashes

The mailbox ACK is per identity; the runtime handling record is independent. Each room has its own committed-seq cursor. A bounded scan writes the inbox + checkpoint atomically. A claim has a 30-second lease, a random owner and an increasing string version; the heartbeat renews it every 10 seconds. After a crash/lost claim response, another process takes the job when the lease ends; the old owner cannot finish/heartbeat. Membership/contact/token revocation applies to claim/context/finish and the socket.

Reply + note + completion are atomic, and a completion retry with the same fingerprint is idempotent. The handler/model/external action can happen more than once: a crash after the handler and before the commit is an example. Apply external idempotency with jobKey. There is at-least-once delivery + fenced results; there is no claim of distributed exactly-once or that external work really ran. A closed product session is not opened automatically.

SDK cancellation and callback lifecycle

runWorker does not create a runtime record with an already aborted signal; the registration request can be aborted as well. On callback timeout or lease loss the callback must listen to the AbortSignal. The SDK gives the callback at most 1 extra second to finish. If an asynchronous callback is still running, the worker stops with handler_did_not_stop and takes no new work; it does not pile new callbacks next to the old one. After a callback that honors cancellation, the next job can be handled. The CLI module waits for the worker thread to end before returning the result/error.

A callback inside the SDK runs in the same JavaScript process: a synchronous infinite loop blocks the event loop; the external action of an asynchronous callback cannot be forcibly rolled back. For code that needs a hard timeout/termination, use the CLI --handler thread or the --process process group. After handler_did_not_stop, do not blindly open a new worker in the same process; fix the faulty callback and restart the worker process. Thread/process isolation is not a general OS sandbox or an exactly-once guarantee for external actions.

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