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Concept ​

What is Anolis? ​

Anolis is a capability-oriented machine runtime that makes diverse industrial devices look uniform.

Devices expose:

  • Signals: Readable state (temperature, position, status)
  • Functions: Validated actions (set_relay, move_motor, configure)

All automation and control (manual or automated) operates through these capabilities.

The Problem ​

Industrial systems have:

  • Different hardware (sensors, actuators, motors, relays)
  • Different protocols (Modbus, CAN, GPIO, serial)
  • Different vendors (Arduino, PLC, custom boards)
  • Different languages (C++, Python, Rust)

Building automation requires talking to all of them. This is tedious and fragile.

The Solution ​

Providers: Small processes that speak to one type of hardware and expose it via a standard protocol. (ADPP - Anolis Device Provider Protocol).

Runtime: Core system that discovers devices, polls state, routes control commands, and exposes unified APIs.

Result: Write control logic once. Swap hardware by changing config.

Key Ideas ​

  1. Providers are isolated processes - No shared memory, crash-safe
  2. Protocol-based communication - stdio framing, protobuf messages
  3. Single source of truth - Core is authoritative for machine state (StateCache)
  4. Unified control path - All control goes through CallRouter, no bypasses
  5. Capability-driven - Core never hard-codes device semantics

What Anolis Is NOT ​

  • Not a SCADA system (no HMI built-in)
  • Not a PLC replacement (complementary)
  • Not IoT cloud platform (local-first)
  • Not real-time (soft real-time only)

Current Runtime Capabilities ​

The current runtime includes:

  • Provider lifecycle and supervision (spawn, health, restart/backoff, circuit behavior)
  • Capability registry and state polling cache
  • Unified validated control path (CallRouter)
  • Runtime YAML contracts (schema + runtime semantic validation)
  • Runtime HTTP /v0 surface for state, control, mode, parameters, and events
  • Behavior-tree automation layer with mode gating and runtime parameters
  • Contract-tested integration surfaces for Composer and Operator UI tooling

Use Cases ​

  • Lab automation: Mix Arduino sensors with NI DAQ cards
  • Test rigs: Control motors, read thermocouples, log data
  • Small production: Monitor + control with behavior trees
  • Prototyping: Swap mock providers for real hardware transparently