Execution

Executing deadlift workflows relies on the use of Web Assembly, or WASM, as the bytes that represent specific functions.

WASM was initially created for use in the browser because of the performance limitations of JavaScript, and is fully sandboxed by default. This means that a WASM binary has no network, file system, environment, stdin/stdout, or any other hardware specific resources available to it by default. In addition, WASM is simply a compilation target, the same as how you might compile a program to run on Unix or Windows. These characteristics enable workflow functions to be written in many of the most popular programming languages, including JavaScript, Go, and Rust, and then run anywhere.

deadlift embeds a WASM runtime, which is essentially an extremely compact, resource efficient, and secure virtual machine, to then execute WASM binary that composes a deadlift workflow. This enables secure-by-default workflows written in your favorite languages to be executed at very low latency. Workflows can also be updated without any downtime or redeployments, simply by updating the WASM binary and ensuring the process executing it receives the update.