Development Update — May 27

A big structural day. Two long-running refactors converge: the unified app framework (#2775) names the implicit contract every skywire app has been following and starts folding the built-in services into it, and the pty rename finishes de-coupling the pty subsystem from dmsg — pkg/dmsg/dmsgpty becomes pkg/pty, because the pty runs over dmsg, skynet, tcp, or http, and the name should say so. Plus the pair-binary collapse and a round of hypervisor-cache tuning that produces two patch releases.

Skywire: The Unified App Framework (#2775)

Every skywire app — skysocks, vpn, skychat, the pty, the web servers — has been following the same implicit contract (a run function, a status/error surface, a port). #2775 names that contract and makes it explicit, so apps stop being near-duplicates of each other.

2860 refactor(app): name the implicit app contract (phase 1) + 2861 / 2862 extract status/error/port helpers + type RunFunc as AppFunc (phase 2) — the contract is given a name and a type (AppFunc), and the boilerplate every app reimplemented (status, error, port) is extracted onto *app.Client.

2867 refactor(visor): pty as Internal app (phase 3.3) + 2871 / 2872 dmsgweb + skynetweb as Internal apps (phase 3.2 / 4) — the pty and the two web servers become Internal apps — running inside the visor under the same app contract as the external apps, with proper restart policies, instead of bespoke subsystems. 2869 makes the pty’s AppFunc complete the in-process IPC handshake, and 2870 fixes RestartPolicy=Always to re-start on an operator stop.

The RFC for the unified service contract (#2863) captures where this is going: one app shape, declared run-modes, the built-in services as apps.

Skywire: The Final Pty Rename

2876 refactor: rename pkg/dmsg/dmsgpty → pkg/pty + 2877 refactor(visorconfig): rename Dmsgpty → Pty w/ JSON backward-compat + 2879 refactor(cmd): rename cmd/dmsg/dmsgpty-{host,ui,cli} → pty-* — the pty subsystem sheds its dmsg-specific name. It was never really dmsg-only — it runs over dmsg, skynet, tcp, or http — so pkg/dmsg/dmsgpty becomes pkg/pty, the config Dmsgpty becomes Pty (with JSON backward-compat so existing configs still parse), and the commands become pty-*. 2866 keeps the dmsg pty * CLI subtree intact (hidden, not removed) so existing muscle memory and scripts don’t break, and 2864 consolidates the cli/host/ui under skywire app pty.

*2878 fix(visorconfig): V1.UnmarshalJSON must not wipe preset Common — a config-unmarshal fix surfaced by the rename: unmarshaling must not wipe a preset *Common block.

Skywire: Pair-Binary Collapse

2873 / 2874 / 2875 refactor(apps): skysocks / vpn / skynet pair collapse — the paired client/server binaries collapse into single binaries with a shared delegating-wrapper helper (and a fix for the wrapper’s recursion). Fewer binaries, one wrapper pattern.

Skywire: Hypervisor Cache Tuning + Releases

v1.3.57’s hypervisor-UI changes introduced a stale-row regression; today walks it back carefully.

2852 widen cache-fresh window 30s → 3min + 2853 apply cache-fresh window to the sweep branch + 2855 walk back the aggressive-eviction half of #2842 + 2856 shorten hypervisor RPC idle-timeout 10min → 90s + 2858 background summaryCache poll independent of UI activity — the summary cache is widened to absorb the stream-idle cycle, the over-aggressive eviction is reverted, the RPC idle-timeout is tightened, and the cache poll moves to a background loop so the dashboard stays fresh whether or not someone is looking at it. This ships as v1.3.58 (the walk-back) and v1.3.59 (the background poll), after v1.3.57 (47 PRs).

Also today: 2850 gives the hypervisor UI sortable columns, drag-drop reorder, a version-history chart, and standalone-mode docs; 2848 has dmsgfirst use a direct-client-backed dmsg.Client for its primary path; and 2849 corrects an embedded keyring port for a community dmsg server.