[dumbbell]

This is the same as a PID except that the process who created its alias can decide if it is still interested in a reply or not. If the alias is deleted, the message won't reach the process mailbox.

However, it is not possible to query the PID or its node from an alias. In the context of Ra, it is impossible to implement the local option of the send_msg effect.

Because of this, the message is always sent from the leader.

[dumbbell]

I didn’t change the documentation. I wanted to discuss the idea and its implementation first.

I’m implementing a feature in Khepri to allow to send the result of a command to a specific process which may not be the caller (as part of the batching effort). I would like to be able to set a PID alias instead of a PID to make it resistant to log replay: the result should not be sent a second time to that designated process.

As noted in a couple comments in the code, it’s impossible to determine the PID or the node of a PID alias. Therefore, the local options can’t be honored.

[mergify]

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds PID-alias support to send_msg effects, routing alias messages through the leader.

Changes:

• Detects reference-based aliases during effect dispatch.
• Adds an integration test for active alias delivery.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
src/ra_server_proc.erl	Dispatches alias-targeted messages from the leader.
test/ra_machine_int_SUITE.erl	Tests basic alias delivery.

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