Gridiron

A durable compute mesh that weaves Restate's permanent event log with workerd's low-latency V8 isolates into a single, self-healing grid for stateful processing.

What is Gridiron?

Gridiron combines two powerful technologies:

• Restate: Durable execution orchestration with virtual objects and persistent state
• workerd: Cloudflare's open-source Workers runtime (V8 isolates)

Together, they create a distributed compute mesh where:

• Worker code runs in ultra-fast V8 isolates (millisecond cold starts)
• State is durable and survives crashes via Restate's event log
• Hot code deployment allows zero-downtime updates via path-based versioning

Quick Demo

# Build and start
just docker-build && just docker-run

# Build and deploy the demo services
just deploy-demo

# Test it out
just test-greeter
# => "Hello, World! ..."
just test-greeter friend
# => "Hello, friend! ..."
just test-counter
# => 1
just test-counter
# => 2
just test-counter other-key
# => 1
just test-counter
# => 3

# Stop everything
just docker-clean

See demo/GETTING_STARTED.md for a complete step-by-step tutorial.

What Can Gridiron Do For You?

For Application Developers:

• Deploy serverless functions with durable state
• Update code without downtime - in-flight executions finish on the old version, new calls go to the new version
• Write stateful services in familiar TypeScript/Cloudflare Workers SDK
• State persists across crashes and restarts automatically

For Platform Teams:

• Zero-downtime deployments with automatic version management
• Independent service lifecycles - update services without affecting others
• Simple, focused deployment manager

Architecture

┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Gridiron Container                     │
│                                                           │
│  ┌───────────┐      ┌─────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐  │
│  │  Restate  │◄────►│   workerd   │◄───►│   Manager    │  │
│  │   Server  │      │(V8 Isolates)│     │              │  │
│  │           │      │             │     │              │  │
│  │9070/8080  │      │ 9080 (TCP)  │     │     8081     │  │
│  └───────────┘      └─────────────┘     └──────────────┘  │
│       │                    │                    │         │
│       │                    │                    │         │
│    RocksDB           Code Bundles          Config Gen     │
│    (State)          (/data/bundles)      (workerd.capnp)  │
│                                                           │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key Components:

• Restate Server: Durable execution orchestration (Rust)
• workerd: V8 isolate-based JavaScript execution (C++)
• Manager: Deployment management sidecar

Features

• ✅ Durable Execution: Workflows survive crashes via Restate's event log
• ✅ Virtual Objects: Stateful actors with single-writer consistency
• ✅ Hot Code Deployment: Zero-downtime updates via path-based versioning
• ✅ Fast Cold Starts: V8 isolates start in milliseconds
• ✅ Simple: Minimal, focused deployment manager
• ✅ Self-Healing: Automatic restart via runit

Documentation

• demo/GETTING_STARTED.md - Step-by-step tutorial: build, deploy, and experience hot code deployment
• DEPLOY.md - Deploying your own services, API reference, troubleshooting
• AGENTS.md - Architecture details and design decisions
• manager/README.md - Manager service documentation

Technology Stack

• Restate: Rust, durable execution engine
• workerd: C++, V8 isolate runtime
• Manager: Deployment management service
• Services: TypeScript + Wrangler (Cloudflare Workers SDK)
• Supervision: runit (C-based)
• Build: Just (command runner)

License

MIT