lightyear_webrtc

Browser-only WebRTC transport for lightyear, built on web-sys.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/77cc416a-bc46-44e9-a073-7ffedd9ad3cf

Provides peer-to-peer data channels between two browser tabs using the standard WebRTC offer/answer flow. One peer acts as the host (creates the data channel) and the other as the client (receives it). Both sides are full WASM applications — there is no native server involved, except for STUN (and optional TURN) for NAT traversal.

Features

• Bevy plugin integration — drop in WebRtcServerPlugin / WebRtcClientPlugin and the connection lifecycle is managed through Bevy's ECS
• lightyear_link compatible — connected peers get a Link component for sending and receiving Bytes payloads, fitting into lightyear's transport abstraction
• Pluggable signaling — implement the SignalingClient trait to exchange SDP offers/answers however you want (WebSocket relay, Firebase, manual copy-paste, etc.)
• Unreliable, unordered data channel — configured for low-latency game traffic (no retransmits, no ordering guarantees)

Cargo features

Neither feature is enabled by default. Enable what you need:

[dependencies]
lightyear_webrtc = { version = "0.26", features = ["client", "server"] }

Quick start

use lightyear_webrtc::prelude::*;
use lightyear_webrtc::prelude::server::*;
use lightyear_link::LinkStart;

// 1. Configure ICE servers
let ice_config = IceConfig {
    ice_servers: vec![IceServer {
        urls: vec!["stun:stun.l.google.com:19302".into()],
        username: None,
        credential: None,
    }],
};

// 2. Provide a signaling implementation
let signaling = MySignalingImpl::new(/* ... */);

// 3. Spawn the IO entity and trigger the connection
let entity = commands
    .spawn(WebRtcServerIo {
        ice_config,
        signaling: Some(Box::new(signaling)),
    })
    .id();
commands.trigger(LinkStart { entity });

The client side is identical but uses WebRtcClientIo and WebRtcClientPlugin.

Once the WebRTC connection is established, the entity receives:

• Linked — marks the connection as live
• WebRtcChannels — exposes data_tx / data_rx for raw Vec<u8> messaging
• Link — lightyear's transport abstraction with send / recv buffers

Signaling

Signaling is the mechanism used to exchange SDP offers and answers between peers before the WebRTC connection is established. This crate does not provide a signaling server — you bring your own by implementing SignalingClient:

pub trait SignalingClient: Send + Sync + 'static {
    /// Host publishes its offer and waits for the client's answer.
    fn publish_offer(&mut self, offer: String) -> BoxFuture<'_, Result<String, SignalingError>>;

    /// Client retrieves the host's pending offer.
    fn retrieve_offer(&mut self) -> BoxFuture<'_, Result<String, SignalingError>>;

    /// Client sends its answer back to the host.
    fn submit_answer(&mut self, answer: String) -> BoxFuture<'_, Result<(), SignalingError>>;
}

Connection lifecycle

LinkStart triggered
    -> Linking (async setup in progress)
        -> Linked + WebRtcChannels (success)
        -> Unlinked { reason } (failure)

Example: WebRTC Pong

The examples/webrtc_pong directory contains a minimal networked Pong game demonstrating the full connection flow with manual copy-paste signaling.

Building and running

cd examples/webrtc_pong
bash build_web.sh     # or: bash build_web.sh release
npx serve out -p 8888 # or any static file server of your choice

Then open two browser tabs:

1. Navigate to http://localhost:8888/?host
2. Navigate to http://localhost:8888/?client
3. Copy the OFFER from the host tab, paste it into the client tab
4. Copy the ANSWER from the client tab, paste it back into the host tab
5. Play Pong with arrow keys

The host is authoritative over ball physics and sends ball position to the client. Both peers send their paddle position to each other.

Requirements

• Target: wasm32-unknown-unknown (browser only)
• Rust: 1.88+
• Bevy: 0.18

License

Licensed under either of Apache License, Version 2.0 or MIT License at your option.

Disclaimer

This is mostly fun weekend project for me to learn about WebRTC, this is not really indended to be production ready transport solution. That said, if you find this useful or want to contribute, please open an issue or PR, I will try to respond when I have time.