Channel Management

Documentation status: architecture — see Maturity and evidence.

A channel connects producers and consumers inside an execution context. It should be treated as a resource with identity, lifetime, and a close policy.

Contract

Channel documentation should specify:

• who creates and closes it;
• direction of flow;
• transported value type;
• ordering and concurrency;
• buffering/backpressure;
• error behavior;
• cancellation and shutdown;
• local or remote boundary.

Good practices

Do not retain a channel beyond the Runtime it belongs to. Do not assume a remote channel has the same cost or guarantees as a local channel. Associated wrappers and resources should be released deterministically.