Introduction

ZigBolt

ZigBolt is an ultra-low-latency, lock-free messaging system written in pure Zig for high-frequency trading systems. Zero GC pauses, zero JVM safepoints, zero runtime overhead.

Why ZigBolt?

Traditional HFT messaging systems are either:

• Java-based (Aeron, LMAX Disruptor, Chronicle Queue) — subject to GC pauses, JVM safepoints, and large runtime overhead
• C/C++-based (ZeroMQ, nanomsg) — complex build systems, memory safety issues, undefined behavior risks

ZigBolt combines the best of both worlds:

• Zero overhead like C — no GC, no runtime, direct hardware access
• Safety — comptime validation, bounds-checked handling of untrusted input (shared-memory headers, network datagrams), clear error handling
• Simplicity — single file per module, no build system complexity, cross-compilation built in
• Performance — designed for sub-200ns IPC and 100M+ msg/sec codec throughput (design targets — run the bundled benchmarks on your hardware)

Current Status

• 423 tests pass (zig build test), in both Debug and ReleaseFast builds.
• zig build produces the C-ABI shared library, and all five language bindings (C, Rust, Python, Go, TypeScript) build and pass smoke tests against it.
• The Raft consensus module is experimental: durable persistence (WAL, persisted vote/term, atomic snapshots, crash recovery) is wired in, but election timers and message transport are the embedder’s responsibility, and it has not yet been validated with multi-process fault injection.
• Performance numbers are design targets, not measured results.

Architecture

ZigBolt is organized into seven layers, each depending only on layers below it:

+================================================================+
|                     Application Layer                          |
|  Transport, Publisher(T), Subscriber(T), AgentRunner           |
+================================================================+
|                     Channel Layer                              |
|  IpcChannel (shm)    UdpChannel    NetworkChannel (reliable)   |
|  CongestionControl   FlowControl(Min/Max/Tagged)               |
+================================================================+
|                     Protocol Layer                             |
|  Reliability (NAK)   Fragmenter/Reassembler   NakController    |
|  DataHeaderFlyweight  StatusMessageFlyweight   NakFlyweight     |
+================================================================+
|                     Codec Layer                                |
|  WireCodec(T)   SbeEncoder/SbeDecoder   FIX Messages           |
+================================================================+
|                     Core Layer                                 |
|  SpscRingBuffer   MpscRingBuffer   LogBuffer   Sequencer       |
|  BroadcastBuffer (1-to-N)   CounterSet   GlobalCounters        |
+================================================================+
|                     Cluster / Archive Layer                    |
|  RaftNode   Cluster   WriteAheadLog   SnapshotManager          |
|  Archive   Catalog   SparseIndex   Compressor/Decompressor     |
+================================================================+
|                     Platform Layer                             |
|  config.zig (cache lines, timestamps)   memory.zig (shm/mmap) |
+================================================================+

Module Overview

Module	File	Description
SpscRingBuffer	src/core/spsc.zig	Lock-free single-producer single-consumer ring buffer
MpscRingBuffer	src/core/mpsc.zig	Multi-producer single-consumer with CAS
LogBuffer	src/core/log_buffer.zig	Aeron-style term rotation buffer
WireCodec	src/codec/wire.zig	Comptime zero-copy codec for packed structs
SbeEncoder/Decoder	src/codec/sbe.zig	SBE wire format engine
FIX Messages	src/codec/fix_messages.zig	FIX/SBE market data messages
IpcChannel	src/channel/ipc.zig	Shared-memory IPC channel
UdpChannel	src/channel/udp.zig	UDP unicast/multicast
NetworkChannel	src/channel/network.zig	Reliable ordered UDP
BroadcastBuffer	src/core/broadcast.zig	1-to-N fan-out for market data
Archive	src/archive/archive.zig	Segment-based message recording/replay
RaftNode	src/cluster/raft.zig	Raft consensus: election, replication (experimental)
Sequencer	src/sequencer/sequencer.zig	Total-order sequence assignment
FFI	src/ffi/exports.zig	C-ABI exports used by the C, Rust, Python, Go, and TypeScript bindings