I have a first attempt at a sync engine for my app, but it's very primitive. Just a websocket that sends updates based on database triggers. If you miss one, you have to do a full reload. I know I'll need something better in a year or so.
Any advice on what route to take with creating a sync engine for a product like mine? Self-hosted, single binary web app (Rust) + Postgres db. Frontend is based on VueJS. I've looked at the readme of Yjs and was considering that. I'm a solo dev for now.
I'm tempted to feed Cursor this description of the reverse engineered solution of Linear, but I doubt it'll be successful.
Linear’s sync engine maintains a local, in-memory object graph (backed by MobX) and persists all changes to IndexedDB, allowing immediate, offline-first updates.
We build same experience at www.teamcamp.app
What's the closest opensource library that implements this sync (or similar) scheme? ElectricSQL? ZeroSync? Firebase? Something else?
Is this applicable for a consumer mobile app to use for a local-first architecture (either conceptually or literally)?
Whatever a linear sync engine actually is... sigh. Needs more information.
If you're using AI to write all those em-dashes, please add a disclaimer.
For humans i would say a shorter summary is Linear.app syncs a client IndexedDB with the server using naive last-write-wins, no conflict detection, no OT, no CRDT. There's a global sync ID that the server is in control of. Most of the article describes minutae of the json schema.
I think the impressive part here isn't Linear's sync engine, but the fact that Evan Hu went through painstakingly reverse-engineer the engine by inspecting traffic and obfuscated code and was able to write documentation that is correct and more complete than what Linear publishes internally.