Network Architecture

Timeleap separates orchestration from execution using a two-role model: brokers and workers. These nodes communicate over WebSockets and coordinate task lifecycle, pricing, validation, and delivery across public or private subnets.

Roles

The Timeleap Network consists of two node types:

• broker — orchestrates workloads
• worker — executes workloads in isolated containers and streams back results

Communication Model

Workers and plugins maintain persistent WebSocket connections to brokers. Brokers authenticate and dispatch tasks to the appropriate target — either a worker or a plugin.

Subnets

Each broker defines its own subnet. Workers choose which broker(s) to connect to.

• public — discoverable via the global registry (comming soon!)
• private — isolated

Payments & Credit

Each public subnet defines its own pricing, reward structure, and participation rules. To join a subnet, nodes must stake — this acts as a permission mechanism and signals compliance with access policies defined in TEP-5 and TEP-6.

Staking is configured via the tlp admin CLI. The stake is not consumed during execution. It authorizes the node to operate on the subnet and enables trustless access control.

Clients pay subnets to execute workloads. Subnets distribute rewards to workers based on task completion and pricing terms.

Plugins

Plugins are standalone processes that connect to a worker over WebSocket. They expose custom execution logic and respond to structured binary messages defined using @timeleap/sia.

Workers do not start or manage plugins. Each plugin runs independently inside the Docker network and establishes a direct, long-lived connection to the worker. When a task targets a plugin, the worker routes the request through the corresponding WebSocket and returns the response to the broker.

Plugins can be used to implement models, simulators, or specialized business logic.

• Connect to workers via WebSocket from within the container network
• Respond to task payloads with typed binary interfaces (SIA)
• Fully isolated from broker and runtime scheduling
• Designed for deterministic execution and fast response cycles