Custom Snapshots in MoonBit

Golem agents can implement the Snapshottable trait to support manual (snapshot-based) updates and snapshot-based recovery.

When to Use Snapshotting

Snapshotting solves two distinct problems:

1. Manual / snapshot-based component updates — required when updating agents between incompatible component versions.
2. Fast recovery and oplog compaction — for long-running agents whose oplog grows over time (heartbeats, polling loops, recurring tasks, agents with frequent state changes). Without snapshotting, every recovery replays the full oplog from the beginning, which becomes increasingly expensive. With periodic snapshotting (every_n(N)), recovery starts from the latest snapshot and replays only the entries after it.

You cannot opt out of oplog writes for a durable agent. If you are worried about oplog volume or replay cost, do not try to skip persistence — enable snapshot-based recovery here instead.

Automatic JSON Snapshotting (Default)

When the agent struct derives ToJson and @json.FromJson, the SDK’s code generation automatically provides JSON-based snapshotting. Enable it via the snapshotting attribute on #derive.agent:

#derive.agent(snapshotting="every_n(1)")
struct Counter {
  name : String
  mut value : UInt64
} derive(ToJson, @json.FromJson)
 
fn Counter::new(name : String) -> Counter {
  { name, value: 0 }
}
 
pub fn Counter::increment(self : Self) -> Unit {
  self.value += 1
}
 
pub fn Counter::get_value(self : Self) -> UInt64 {
  self.value
}

The code generation tool detects ToJson and @json.FromJson derives and generates a Snapshottable implementation that serializes the agent as JSON.

Snapshotting Modes

The snapshotting attribute accepts these values:

Custom Snapshotting

For custom binary serialization or cross-version migration, implement the Snapshottable trait manually:

pub(open) trait Snapshottable {
  save_snapshot(Self) -> Bytes
  load_snapshot(Self, Bytes) -> Result[Unit, String]
}

Example

#derive.agent(snapshotting="every_n(1)")
struct Counter {
  name : String
  mut value : UInt64
}
 
fn Counter::new(name : String) -> Counter {
  { name, value: 0 }
}
 
pub fn Counter::increment(self : Self) -> Unit {
  self.value += 1
}
 
pub fn Counter::get_value(self : Self) -> UInt64 {
  self.value
}
 
///|
pub impl @agents.Snapshottable for Counter with save_snapshot(self) {
  // Serialize value as 8 big-endian bytes
  let bytes = Bytes::new(8)
  let v = self.value
  for i in 0..<8 {
    bytes[i] = ((v >> ((7 - i).to_uint64() * 8)).to_int() & 0xff).to_byte()
  }
  bytes
}
 
///|
pub impl @agents.Snapshottable for Counter with load_snapshot(self, bytes) {
  if bytes.length() != 8 {
    return Err("Expected an 8-byte long snapshot")
  }
  let mut v : UInt64 = 0
  for i in 0..<8 {
    v = v | (bytes[i].to_uint64() << ((7 - i).to_uint64() * 8))
  }
  self.value = v
  Ok(())
}

Method Signatures

// Save: serialize the agent's current state to bytes
save_snapshot(Self) -> Bytes
 
// Load: restore the agent's state from previously saved bytes
// Return Err to signal the update should fail and the agent should revert
load_snapshot(Self, Bytes) -> Result[Unit, String]

How the SDK Wires Snapshots

The code generation tool (golem_sdk_tools agents) produces a ConstructedAgent struct for each agent. When snapshotting is enabled:

1. If the agent has ToJson + @json.FromJson derives, the generated code automatically provides a Snapshottable implementation using JSON serialization.
2. If the agent has a manual impl Snapshottable, the custom implementation is used instead.
3. The ConstructedAgent records the snapshottable interface reference and snapshot_format (Json or Binary).
4. The SDK’s save-snapshot and load-snapshot WIT exports delegate to these implementations.

Best Practices

1. Prefer automatic (JSON) snapshotting — derive ToJson and @json.FromJson on the agent struct for zero-effort persistence.
2. Keep snapshots small — large snapshots impact recovery and update time.
3. Version your snapshot format — include a version byte so load_snapshot can handle snapshots from older versions.
4. Test round-trips — verify that save_snapshot → load_snapshot produces equivalent state.
5. Handle migration — when the state schema changes between versions, load_snapshot in the new version should be able to parse snapshots from the old version.
6. Return Err to reject incompatible snapshots — load_snapshot returning Err causes the update to fail gracefully, reverting the agent to the old version.