anycable-coder

AnyCable Coder

Why AnyCable Over Action Cable

Action Cable provides "at-most once" delivery—messages can be lost on reconnection. For LLM streaming where every chunk matters, this is insufficient.

AnyCable provides:

• At-least once delivery - Messages are guaranteed to arrive
• Message ordering - Chunks arrive in correct sequence
• Automatic reconnection - With history recovery
• Action Cable Extended Protocol - Enhanced reliability on top of WebSockets

Installation

bundle add anycable-rails
bin/rails g anycable:setup

# Client (replace @rails/actioncable)
npm install @anycable/web

Server-Side Channels

Basic LLM Streaming Channel

class LlmStreamChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  def subscribed
    stream_for current_user
  end

  def generate(data)
    prompt = data["prompt"]

    llm_client.stream(prompt) do |chunk|
      LlmStreamChannel.broadcast_to(
        current_user,
        { type: "chunk", content: chunk }
      )
    end

    LlmStreamChannel.broadcast_to(
      current_user,
      { type: "complete" }
    )
  end
end

With Presence Tracking

class ChatChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  include AnyCable::Rails::Channel::Presence

  def subscribed
    stream_from "chat_#{params[:room_id]}"
    presence.join(current_user.id, name: current_user.name)
  end

  def unsubscribed
    presence.leave
  end
end

Client-Side Implementation

Migration from Action Cable

// Before (Action Cable)
import { createConsumer } from "@rails/actioncable"

// After (AnyCable) - same API!
import { createConsumer } from "@anycable/web"

export default createConsumer()

Modern AnyCable Client

import { createCable } from "@anycable/web"

const cable = createCable()

// Class-based channel
import { Channel } from "@anycable/web"

class LlmStreamChannel extends Channel {
  static identifier = "LlmStreamChannel"

  async generate(prompt) {
    return this.perform("generate", { prompt })
  }
}

// Subscribe and handle chunks
const channel = new LlmStreamChannel()
cable.subscribe(channel)

await channel.ensureSubscribed()

channel.on("message", (msg) => {
  if (msg.type === "chunk") {
    appendToResponse(msg.content)
  } else if (msg.type === "complete") {
    finishResponse()
  }
})

channel.generate("Explain WebSockets")

Direct Streams (Signed)

// Subscribe directly to a stream without channel class
const cable = createCable()
const stream = cable.streamFrom("llm_response/user_123")

stream.on("message", (msg) => console.log(msg))

Presence API

const chatChannel = cable.subscribeTo("ChatChannel", { roomId: "42" })

// Join presence
chatChannel.presence.join(user.id, { name: user.name })

// Listen for presence events
chatChannel.presence.on("presence", (event) => {
  if (event.type === "join") {
    console.log("User joined:", event.id, event.info)
  } else if (event.type === "leave") {
    console.log("User left:", event.id)
  }
})

// Get current presence
const users = await chatChannel.presence.info()

// Leave presence
chatChannel.presence.leave()

LLM Streaming Pattern

Complete Implementation

# app/channels/assistant_channel.rb
class AssistantChannel < ApplicationCable::Channel
  def subscribed
    stream_for current_user
  end

  def ask(data)
    conversation_id = data["conversation_id"]
    message = data["message"]

    # Broadcast start
    broadcast_event("start", conversation_id:)

    # Stream LLM response
    response = ""
    llm.chat(message) do |chunk|
      response += chunk
      broadcast_event("chunk", conversation_id:, content: chunk)
    end

    # Save and broadcast completion
    Message.create!(conversation_id:, role: "assistant", content: response)
    broadcast_event("complete", conversation_id:)
  rescue => e
    broadcast_event("error", conversation_id:, message: e.message)
  end

  private

  def broadcast_event(type, **payload)
    AssistantChannel.broadcast_to(current_user, { type:, **payload })
  end

  def llm
    @llm ||= OpenAI::Client.new
  end
end

// app/javascript/channels/assistant_channel.js
import { Channel } from "@anycable/web"

export default class AssistantChannel extends Channel {
  static identifier = "AssistantChannel"

  constructor() {
    super()
    this.responseBuffer = ""
  }

  async ask(conversationId, message) {
    this.responseBuffer = ""
    return this.perform("ask", { conversation_id: conversationId, message })
  }

  // Override to handle message types
  receive(message) {
    switch (message.type) {
      case "start":
        this.onStart?.(message.conversation_id)
        break
      case "chunk":
        this.responseBuffer += message.content
        this.onChunk?.(message.content, this.responseBuffer)
        break
      case "complete":
        this.onComplete?.(this.responseBuffer, message.conversation_id)
        break
      case "error":
        this.onError?.(message.message)
        break
    }
  }
}

Configuration

AnyCable Server

# config/anycable.yml
production:
  broadcast_adapter: nats
  redis_url: <%= ENV.fetch("REDIS_URL") %>

  # Enable reliable streams
  streams_history_size: 100
  streams_history_ttl: 300

Cable URL

<!-- app/views/layouts/application.html.erb -->
<%= action_cable_meta_tag %>

// Auto-detects from meta tag, or specify explicitly
import { createCable } from "@anycable/web"
createCable("wss://cable.example.com/cable")

Deployment

Procfile

web: bundle exec puma -C config/puma.rb
anycable: bundle exec anycable
ws: anycable-go

Docker Compose

services:
  web:
    command: bundle exec puma
  anycable:
    command: bundle exec anycable
  ws:
    image: anycable/anycable-go:1.6
    environment:
      ANYCABLE_RPC_HOST: anycable:50051
      ANYCABLE_REDIS_URL: redis://redis:6379

Action Cable vs AnyCable

Feature	Action Cable	AnyCable
Delivery guarantee	At-most once	At-least once
Message ordering	Not guaranteed	Guaranteed
History on reconnect	No	Yes (configurable)
Presence tracking	Manual	Built-in
Performance	Ruby threads	Go server
LLM streaming	Unreliable	Reliable

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Solution
Action Cable for LLM streaming	Lost chunks on reconnect	Use AnyCable
Ignoring message ordering	Garbled responses	AnyCable handles automatically
Manual reconnection logic	Complex, error-prone	Use AnyCable client
No presence tracking	Unknown user state	Use built-in presence API

Output Format

When implementing real-time features with AnyCable:

1. Channel - Server-side Ruby channel with broadcasting
2. Client - JavaScript subscription with message handling
3. Configuration - anycable.yml and deployment setup
4. Error Handling - Graceful degradation patterns