Arqen

Backend infrastructure for agent-ready applications

Arqen is a developer-focused backend toolkit for services that people, programs, and agents can operate. It brings typed tools, durable jobs, discoverable APIs, explicit modules, health checks, and thingd integration to one application boundary.

“Agent-ready” does not mean AI-only. It means capabilities are discoverable, typed, permission-aware, auditable, and automation-friendly.

Arqen is Rust-first internally, built on Tokio, Tower, tracing, and thingd, with Axum as its current HTTP transport. Its application positioning is language-agnostic: future Node.js support can use the public HTTP API, SDKs, templates, and shared manifests.

Project status

Arqen is early-stage and actively maturing. The current single package contains the library and feature-gated CLI, including configuration, authentication, validation, jobs, observability, OpenAPI helpers, module composition, testing utilities, and Thingd 0.77 encryption, schema, and opt-in replication integration. Production adoption still requires application-specific security review, durability and recovery testing, public thingd compatibility checks, and operational ownership.

See the feature status before depending on a capability. The current implementation is Arqen 0.6.1; publish that patch before consumers replace their temporary local path pin.

Quickstart

Add the one public Cargo package:

[dependencies]
arqen = "0.6"

Create a starter application from a checkout:

cargo run -p arqen --features cli --bin arqen -- new hello-api
cd hello-api
cargo run

Run the example server:

cargo run -p arqen --features cli --bin arqen -- dev --storage memory
curl http://127.0.0.1:8888/health

Install the CLI locally when working from a checkout:

cargo install --path crates/arqen --features cli
arqen --version
arqen --help

Architecture

Application, client, or agent
              |
       Arqen HTTP boundary
              |
 tools · policies · jobs · health · logs
              |
       Arqen adapter contract
        /         |          \
   memory     native durable   HTTP sidecar
  local/test     thingd        thingd service
                                  |
                         future optional cloud API

The same application-facing contracts are designed for four deployment modes:

Mode	Best for	Status
Memory	Local development and tests	Available
Native durable	An embedded thingd process	Available; validate recovery for your workload
HTTP sidecar	A separate thingd service	Available; validate the public contract
Cloud	Hosted thingd services	Future integration path

Thingd 0.77 adds the supported integration boundary for encrypted native storage, versioned .thingd schema inspection, and opt-in source-to-replica sync. Thingd owns encryption format, checkpoints, tombstones, and conflict semantics; Arqen owns configuration, lifecycle, typed adapters, health, and metrics around those capabilities.

For coding agents

Arqen is designed to be understood from tracked public files alone. To implement a scoped change:

Read README.md (this file) for purpose, status, and quickstart.
Read specs/README.md and specs/STATUS.md for phase status.
Read the relevant phase specification in specs/.
Read docs/standards.md for coding conventions.
Read docs/repository-structure.md for file locations.
Read source files in crates/arqen/src/ for implementation details.
Run tests: cargo test --workspace --all-features
Run lints: cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings

Do not rely on AGENTS.md, .opencode/, or other local AI instruction files. The versioned README, documentation site, and specifications are the public project contract.

Why Arqen?

Arqen is a contract layer between an application and the software that operates it. It is not a model runtime, BaaS, or workflow engine.

Traditional web frameworks get typed tools, manifests, policies, jobs, and readiness signals.
Agent frameworks get a model-agnostic application boundary.
BaaS deployments keep their adapter and operational boundaries visible.
Workflow systems get a home for HTTP, storage, observability, and durable work.

Explore the documentation

Documentation site
Getting started · Configuration · Commands
Architecture · Modules · Feature status
Authentication · Validation · OpenAPI
Jobs · Observability · Testing
Agent guide · Manifest contract · thingd integration · Thingd 0.77 sync
Troubleshooting · Migration · Standards
Examples · Health · Performance
Deployment · Docker · Security
Application hardening · Logging · Commands
Production runbook
Contributing · Security policy · Changelog

License

Arqen is available under the MIT License.

arqen 0.7.0