Channels (Routing)

Channels are named conduits for events. They route events between agents and connect to external systems via sinks.

Creating Channels

const network = AgentNetwork.setup(({ mainChannel, createChannel, sink }) => {
  // The main channel — where start events are published
  const main = mainChannel('main');

  // Additional channels
  const processing = createChannel('processing');
  const client = createChannel('client');
});

Channel names must be kebab-case (e.g. 'main', 'client-output', 'processing-queue'). This is enforced at runtime with a branded type.

Channel Events

You can optionally declare which events a channel carries:

const client = createChannel('client')
  .events([responseEvent, errorEvent]);

Sinks

Sinks determine how events leave a channel. They are the bridge between the internal event plane and external systems.

HTTP Stream Sink

Routes events to HTTP SSE streams. Required for expose() to work.

const client = createChannel('client').sink(sink.httpStream());

Kafka Sink

Routes events to a Kafka topic.

const events = createChannel('events').sink(sink.kafka({ topic: 'agent-events' }));

Multiple Sinks

A single channel can have multiple sinks:

const output = createChannel('output')
  .sink(sink.httpStream())
  .sink(sink.kafka({ topic: 'output-events' }));

Event Flow

1. A start event is published to the main channel (either programmatically or via expose())

2. Agents subscribed to that channel receive the event (filtered by their listensTo declarations)

3. Agent logic runs and emits new events

4. Emitted events are published to the agent's publishTo channels

5. Other agents on those channels pick up the events, continuing the chain

6. Events on channels with an HTTP stream sink are streamed to the client

Start Event → Main Channel → Agent A → Processing Channel → Agent B → Client Channel → SSE

See Channel API for full reference.