---
title: akbashev/swift-chat
framework: Swift Package Catalog
role: article
path: packages/akbashev/swift-chat
---

# akbashev/swift-chat

A simple chat made to play with [Distributed actors](https://www.swift.org/blog/distributed-actors/).

## Run

Swift 5.9 is needed (was playing with new Swift Foundations, although removed in the end).

1. Install `brew install postgresql`

2. Open `App/swift-chat.xcodeproj`

3. Configure scheme environment for Frontend node to run a database (DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD and DB_NAME)

4. Run `standalone` node either through Xcode schemes or using command line tools. You need to provide info on which node and where you want to start, e.g. `standalone --host 127.0.0.1 --port 2550`.    Additionaly you can start seperate `frontend` and `room` nodes to play. Better start with frontend:   `frontend --host 127.0.0.1 --port 2550`   and then room:   `room --host 127.0.0.1 --port 2551`

5. Open `swift-chat` app on device/simulator. Create participant and room name, and connect. Open another instance on different device/simulator and connect to the room by entering same name.

## TODO:

(no priorities, so no order) * ~~Check if actors are cleaned from memory when websocket disconnects.~~ * ~~Some database with simple event sourcing.~~ * ~~Basic clustering with fault tolerance. Check different scenarios like room node crashes and etc.~~ * ~~DATABASE NODE FAILURES ARE NOT HANDLED AT THE MOMENT~~ * ~~Currently Event sourcing is not there yet and rudimentary (without state, recovery and snapshoting). Invest some time into this.~~ * ~~Interesting to play with [Swift OpenAPI generator](https://github.com/apple/swift-openapi-generator).~~ * Add some basic documentation. * Testing—at least covering `Room`, `Participant` and `ParticipantRoomConnections` actors would be nice. * Tracing—debugging is quite hard thing even on a single node. Add [Swift Distributed Tracing](https://github.com/apple/swift-distributed-tracing) * Improve scalibility and fault tolerance:   1. Add [node discovery](https://swiftpackageindex.com/apple/swift-distributed-actors/main/documentation/distributedcluster/clustering#Automatic-Node-Discovery) logic.   2. Improve error handling.  * Spining some example on real device/vps to get more info and for fun :) * TBD

## Package Metadata

Repository: akbashev/swift-chat

Default branch: main

README: README.md