aid: actor-model
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/actor-model/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: Actor Model
kind: topic
type: Index
deliveryModel:
  model: unknown
  open_source: false
  commercial: false
  callable_host: false
  label: Delivery model not determined — needs a product licence on record
  confidence: low
  source:
  - openapi
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-09-03'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/actor-model.png
tags:
  - Actor Model
  - Concurrency
  - Distributed Systems
description: >-
  The Actor Model is a mathematical model of concurrent computation where the fundamental unit of computation is an
  actor, an entity that processes messages asynchronously and maintains its own private state. It provides a powerful
  abstraction for building highly concurrent and distributed systems, used in frameworks like Akka and languages like
  Erlang.
created: '2025-01-01'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: actor-model:actor-model-actors-api
  name: Actor Model Actors API
  description: Actor lifecycle and management
  tags:
  - Actors
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/actor-model-actors-api-openapi.yml
  - type: HumanURL
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://api.example.com/actor-system/v1
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/
  - type: JSONStructure
    url: json-structure/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/
- aid: actor-model:actor-model-cluster-api
  name: Actor Model Cluster API
  description: Cluster membership and sharding
  tags:
  - Cluster
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/actor-model-cluster-api-openapi.yml
  - type: HumanURL
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://api.example.com/actor-system/v1
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/
  - type: JSONStructure
    url: json-structure/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/
- aid: actor-model:actor-model-health-api
  name: Actor Model Health API
  description: System health and diagnostics
  tags:
  - Health
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/actor-model-health-api-openapi.yml
  - type: HumanURL
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://api.example.com/actor-system/v1
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/
  - type: JSONStructure
    url: json-structure/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/
- aid: actor-model:actor-model-mailboxes-api
  name: Actor Model Mailboxes API
  description: Message queue inspection
  tags:
  - Mailboxes
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/actor-model-mailboxes-api-openapi.yml
  - type: HumanURL
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://api.example.com/actor-system/v1
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/
  - type: JSONStructure
    url: json-structure/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/
- aid: actor-model:actor-model-supervisors-api
  name: Actor Model Supervisors API
  description: Supervision hierarchy
  tags:
  - Supervisors
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/actor-model-supervisors-api-openapi.yml
  - type: HumanURL
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
  - type: BaseURL
    url: https://api.example.com/actor-system/v1
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/
  - type: JSONStructure
    url: json-structure/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/
common:
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/actor-model-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/actor-model-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/actor-model-finops.yml
  - type: AgenticAccess
    url: agentic-access/actor-model-agentic-access.yml
  - type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
    url: security/actor-model-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
  - type: DomainSecurity
    url: security/actor-model-domain-security.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/actor-model-authentication.yml
  - type: Website
    url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor_model
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://doc.akka.io/
  - type: GitHubOrganization
    url: https://github.com/akka
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: rules/actor-model-spectral-rules.yml
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: vocabulary/actor-model-vocabulary.yaml
  - type: JSONLD
    url: json-ld/actor-model-context.jsonld
features:
  - name: Actor Lifecycle Management
    description: Spawn, monitor, and stop actors with full visibility into current state, mailbox size, and restart history.
    tags:
      - Actor Model
      - Lifecycle
  - name: Message Passing
    description: Send typed messages to actor mailboxes and inspect pending message queues for debugging.
    tags:
      - Actor Model
      - Message Passing
  - name: Supervision Hierarchies
    description: Inspect and query supervisor trees with strategies including one-for-one, one-for-all, and rest-for-one.
    tags:
      - Supervision
      - Fault Tolerance
  - name: Cluster Management
    description: List cluster members, their roles and statuses, and the total actor distribution across nodes.
    tags:
      - Cluster
      - Distributed Systems
  - name: Sharding
    description: Inspect shard partitions, entity counts, and their hosting nodes in sharded cluster topologies.
    tags:
      - Sharding
      - Distributed Systems
  - name: System Health
    description: Monitor actor throughput, error rates, dead letter counts, and overall system health.
    tags:
      - Health
      - Observability
useCases:
  - name: Distributed Platform Operations
    description: Operate and observe distributed actor-based platforms with real-time actor and cluster data.
    tags:
      - Platform
    tags_raw:
      - Operations
      - Platform
  - name: Fault Tolerance Debugging
    description: Debug supervision hierarchies, mailbox backlogs, and restart cascades in production systems.
    tags:
      - Debugging
      - Fault Tolerance
  - name: AI-Assisted Actor Management
    description: Use MCP-exposed tools to give AI assistants visibility into actor system state for incident response.
    tags:
      - Artificial Intelligence
      - MCP
    tags_raw:
      - AI
      - MCP
  - name: Concurrency Education
    description: Learn and experiment with actor model patterns through a reference implementation API.
    tags:
      - Education
      - Learning
integrations:
  - name: Akka
    description: Akka (Scala/Java) is the most widely-used actor framework, compatible with these API patterns.
    tags:
      - Akka
      - Scala
  - name: Erlang OTP
    description: Erlang's OTP supervision tree model is the original inspiration for actor-based fault tolerance patterns.
    tags:
      - Erlang
      - OTP
  - name: Microsoft Orleans
    description: Orleans (.NET) virtual actor framework uses grain-based actors with automatic lifecycle management.
    tags:
      - Orleans
      - .NET
solutions:
  - name: Concurrent System Design Reference
    description: Use the Actor Model API as a design reference when building concurrent distributed services.
    tags:
      - Reference
      - Design
  - name: Platform Observability
    description: Integrate actor system management endpoints into monitoring and incident response workflows.
    tags:
      - Observability
      - Monitoring
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: kin@apievangelist.com