Quick Start

Installation

Getting started with Acton Reactive takes about 30 seconds.

Prerequisites

You need:

  • Rust 1.70 or later (Rust 2021 edition)
  • Cargo (comes with Rust)

If you don't have Rust yet, visit rustup.rs. The default options work fine.

New to Rust?

Acton Reactive is designed to make concurrent programming approachable. We explain Rust concepts as we go.

Add Acton Reactive to Your Project

Starting a new project:

cargo new my-first-actor
cd my-first-actor
cargo add acton-reactive

Adding to an existing project:

cargo add acton-reactive

That's it. Cargo handles everything else.

Verify It Works

Replace the contents of src/main.rs with:

use acton_reactive::prelude::*;

#[acton_main]
async fn main() {
    println!("Acton Reactive is ready!");
}

Run it:

cargo run

You should see:

Acton Reactive is ready!

First Build Takes a Moment

The first compile downloads and builds dependencies. Subsequent builds are much faster.

What Just Happened?

That example introduced two things:

  1. use acton_reactive::prelude::* — Imports everything you need from Acton Reactive. The prelude pattern saves you from importing dozens of individual items.

  2. #[acton_main] — Sets up the async runtime that actors need. Use this instead of the standard fn main() for Acton Reactive applications.

These concepts will make more sense as you build your first actor.

Next Step

You're set up. Let's build something.

Your First Actor — Build a working actor in about 5 minutes.

Next
Your first actor