path: root/google/watcher/v1/watch.proto

// Copyright 2017 Google Inc.
//
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
// You may obtain a copy of the License at
//
//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
//
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
// limitations under the License.

syntax = "proto3";

package google.watcher.v1;

import "google/api/annotations.proto";
import "google/protobuf/any.proto";
import "google/protobuf/empty.proto";

option go_package = "google.golang.org/genproto/googleapis/watcher/v1;watcher";
option java_multiple_files = true;
option java_outer_classname = "WatchProto";
option java_package = "com.google.watcher.v1";

// ## API Overview
//
// [Watcher][] lets a client watch for updates to a named entity, such as a
// directory or database table. For each watched entity, the client receives a
// reliable stream of watch events, without re-ordering.
//
// Watching is done by sending an RPC to a service that implements the API. The
// argument to the RPC contains the name of the entity. The result stream
// consists of a sequence of Change messages that the service continues to
// send until the call fails or is cancelled.
//
// ## Data model
//
// This API assumes that each *entity* has a name and a
// set of *elements*, where each element has a name and a value. The
// entity's name must be a unique identifier within the service, such as
// a resource name. What constitutes an entity or element is
// implementation-specific: for example, a file system implementation
// might define an entity as either a directory or a file, and elements would be
// child files or directories of that entity.
//
// The Watch API allows a client to watch an entity E's immediate
// elements or the whole tree rooted at E. Elements are organized into
// a hierarchy ("" at the top; the rest follows the natural hierarchy of the
// namespace of elements that is being watched). For example, when
// recursively watching a filesystem namespace, X is an ancestor of
// X/Y and X/Y/Z).
//
// ## Watch request
//
// When a client makes a request to watch an entity, it can indicate
// whether it wants to receive the initial state of the entity, just
// new changes to the entity, or resume watching from a particular
// point in a previous watch stream, specified with a `resume_marker` value.
// It can also indicate whether it wants to watch only one entity or all
// entities in the subtree rooted at a particular entity's name.
//
// On receiving a watch request for an entity, the server sends one or more
// messages to the client. The first message informs the client that the server
// has registered the client's request: the instant of time when the
// client receives the event is referred to as the client's "watch
// point" for that entity.
//
// ## Atomic delivery
//
// The response stream consists of a sequence of Change messages. Each
// message contains an `continued` bit. A sub-sequence of Change messages with
// `continued=true` followed by a Change message with `continued=false` forms an
// *atomic group*. Systems that support multi-element atomic updates may
// guarantee that all changes resulting from a single atomic
// update are delivered in the same atomic group. It is up to the
// documentation of a particular system that implements the Watch API to
// document whether or not it supports such grouping. We expect that most
// callers will ignore the notion of atomic delivery and the `continued` bit,
// i.e., they will just process each Change message as it is received.
//
// ## Batching
//
// Multiple Change messages may be grouped into a single ChangeBatch message
// to reduce message transfer overhead. A single ChangeBatch may contain many
// atomic groups, or a single atomic group may be split across many
// ChangeBatch messages.
//
// ## Initial State
//
// The first atomic group delivered by a watch call is special. It is
// delivered as soon as possible and contains the initial state of the
// entity being watched. The client should consider itself caught up
// after processing this first atomic group.
//
// The messages in the first atomic group will either refer to the
// entity itself (`Change.element` == "") or to elements inside the
// entity (`Change.element` != ""). Here are the cases to consider:
//
// 1. `resume_marker` is "" or not specified: For every element P
//    (including the entity itself) that exists, there will be at least
//    one message delivered with element == P and the last such message
//    will contain the current state of P. For every element Q
//    (including the entity itself) that does not exist, either no
//    message will be delivered, or the last message for Q will have
//    state == DOES_NOT_EXIST. At least one message for element="" will
//    be delivered.
//
// 2. `resume_marker` == "now": there will be exactly one message with
//    element = "" and state INITIAL_STATE_SKIPPED. The client cannot
//    assume whether or not the entity exists after receiving this
//    message.
//
// 3. `resume_marker` has a value R from a preceding watch call on this
//    entity: The same messages as described in (1) will be delivered to
//    the client, except that any information implied by messages received
//    on the preceding call up to and including R may not be
//    delivered. The expectation is that the client will start with state
//    it had built up from the preceding watch call, apply the changes
//    received from this call, and build an up-to-date view of the entity
//    without having to fetch a potentially large amount of information
//    that has not changed. Note that some information that had already
//    been delivered by the preceding call might be delivered again.
//
// ## Ordering and Reliability
//
// The Change messages that apply to a particular element of the entity are
// delivered eventually in order without loss for the duration of the RPC. Note
// however that if multiple Changes apply to the same element, the
// implementation is free to suppress them and deliver just the last one. The
// underlying system must provide the guarantee that any relevant update
// received for an entity E after a client's watch point for E MUST be delivered
// to that client.
//
// These tight guarantees allow for the following simplifications in the client:
//
//   1. The client does not need to have a separate polling loop to make up for
//      missed updates.
//
//   2. The client does not need to manage timestamps/versions manually; the
//      last update delivered corresponds to the eventual state of the entity.
//
// Example: a calendar entry may have elements named { "starttime", "endtime",
// "attendees" } with corresponding values or it may have a single element name
// "entry" with a serialized proto for the calendar entry.
//
// ## Ordering constraints for parents/descendants
//
// The Watch API provides guarantees regarding the order in which
// messages for a parent and its descendants are delivered:
//
// 1. The creation of an ancestor (i.e., the first EXISTS message for
//    the ancestor) is reported before the creation of any of its
//    descendants.
//
// 2. The deletion of an ancestor (via a DOES_NOT_EXIST message)
//    implies the deletion of all its descendants. The service will
//    not deliver any messages for the descendants until the parent
//    has been recreated.

// The service that a client uses to connect to the watcher system.
// The errors returned by the service are in the canonical error space,
// see [google.rpc.Code][].
service Watcher {
  // Start a streaming RPC to get watch information from the server.
  rpc Watch(Request) returns (stream ChangeBatch) {
    option (google.api.http) = {
      get: "/v1/watch"
    };
  }
}

// The message used by the client to register interest in an entity.
message Request {
  // The `target` value **must** be a valid URL path pointing to an entity
  // to watch. Note that the service name **must** be
  // removed from the target field (e.g., the target field must say
  // "/foo/bar", not "myservice.googleapis.com/foo/bar"). A client is
  // also allowed to pass system-specific parameters in the URL that
  // are only obeyed by some implementations. Some parameters will be
  // implementation-specific. However, some have predefined meaning
  // and are listed here:
  //
  //  * recursive = true|false [default=false]
  //    If set to true, indicates that the client wants to watch all elements
  //    of entities in the subtree rooted at the entity's name in `target`. For
  //    descendants that are not the immediate children of the target, the
  //    `Change.element` will contain slashes.
  //
  //    Note that some namespaces and entities will not support recursive
  //    watching. When watching such an entity, a client must not set recursive
  //    to true. Otherwise, it will receive an `UNIMPLEMENTED` error.
  //
  // Normal URL encoding must be used inside `target`.  For example, if a query
  // parameter name or value, or the non-query parameter portion of `target`
  // contains a special character, it must be %-encoded.  We recommend that
  // clients and servers use their runtime's URL library to produce and consume
  // target values.
  string target = 1;

  // The `resume_marker` specifies how much of the existing underlying state is
  // delivered to the client when the watch request is received by the
  // system. The client can set this marker in one of the following ways to get
  // different semantics:
  //
  // *   Parameter is not specified or has the value "".
  //     Semantics: Fetch initial state.
  //     The client wants the entity's initial state to be delivered. See the
  //     description in "Initial State".
  //
  // *   Parameter is set to the string "now" (UTF-8 encoding).
  //     Semantics: Fetch new changes only.
  //     The client just wants to get the changes received by the system after
  //     the watch point. The system may deliver changes from before the watch
  //     point as well.
  //
  // *   Parameter is set to a value received in an earlier
  //     `Change.resume_marker` field while watching the same entity.
  //     Semantics: Resume from a specific point.
  //     The client wants to receive the changes from a specific point; this
  //     value must correspond to a value received in the `Change.resume_marker`
  //     field. The system may deliver changes from before the `resume_marker`
  //     as well. If the system cannot resume the stream from this point (e.g.,
  //     if it is too far behind in the stream), it can raise the
  //     `FAILED_PRECONDITION` error.
  //
  // An implementation MUST support an unspecified parameter and the
  // empty string "" marker (initial state fetching) and the "now" marker.
  // It need not support resuming from a specific point.
  bytes resume_marker = 2;
}

// A batch of Change messages.
message ChangeBatch {
  // A list of Change messages.
  repeated Change changes = 1;
}

// A Change indicates the most recent state of an element.
message Change {
  // A reported value can be in one of the following states:
  enum State {
    // The element exists and its full value is included in data.
    EXISTS = 0;

    // The element does not exist.
    DOES_NOT_EXIST = 1;

    // Element may or may not exist. Used only for initial state delivery when
    // the client is not interested in fetching the initial state. See the
    // "Initial State" section above.
    INITIAL_STATE_SKIPPED = 2;

    // The element may exist, but some error has occurred. More information is
    // available in the data field - the value is a serialized Status
    // proto (from [google.rpc.Status][])
    ERROR = 3;
  }

  // Name of the element, interpreted relative to the entity's actual
  // name. "" refers to the entity itself. The element name is a valid
  // UTF-8 string.
  string element = 1;

  // The state of the `element`.
  State state = 2;

  // The actual change data. This field is present only when `state() == EXISTS`
  // or `state() == ERROR`. Please see
  // [google.protobuf.Any][google.protobuf.Any] about how to use the Any type.
  google.protobuf.Any data = 6;

  // If present, provides a compact representation of all the messages that have
  // been received by the caller for the given entity, e.g., it could be a
  // sequence number or a multi-part timestamp/version vector. This marker can
  // be provided in the Request message, allowing the caller to resume the
  // stream watching at a specific point without fetching the initial state.
  bytes resume_marker = 4;

  // If true, this Change is followed by more Changes that are in the same group
  // as this Change.
  bool continued = 5;
}