Service Discovery

FARP extends existing service discovery systems with API schema awareness. Instead of discovering just host and port, consumers discover complete API contracts.

Discovery Backends01

mDNS / Bonjour Integration02

FARP + mDNS enables zero-configuration API discovery on the local network. Services advertise their API schemas via mDNS TXT records and serve full manifests over HTTP.

How It Works

1. Service starts and generates its SchemaManifest

2. Service registers an mDNS entry with TXT records containing:

   • Schema types (schema_types=openapi,asyncapi)

   • Service version (version=v1.2.3)

   • FARP manifest URL (farp_manifest=http://host:port/_farp/manifest)

3. Gateway discovers services via mDNS browse

4. Gateway fetches manifests from each discovered service

5. Gateway auto-configures routes based on schemas

mDNS TXT Records

_farp._tcp.local.
  schema_types=openapi,asyncapi,grpc
  version=v1.2.3
  instance_id=abc123
  farp_manifest=http://192.168.1.50:8080/_farp/manifest
  farp_health=http://192.168.1.50:8080/health
  capabilities=rest,websocket,grpc

HTTP Endpoints

Services expose FARP endpoints for manifest and schema retrieval:

Example Response

GET /_farp/manifest

{
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "service_name": "user-service",
  "service_version": "v1.2.3",
  "instance_id": "instance-abc123",
  "schemas": [...],
  "endpoints": {
    "health": "/health",
    "openapi": "/openapi.json"
  },
  "routing": {
    "strategy": "service",
    "strip_prefix": true
  }
}

Forge Integration03

When using Forge with the discovery extension, FARP integration is automatic:

# forge.yaml
discovery:
  backend: mdns
  farp:
    enabled: true
    advertise_schemas: true
    serve_manifest: true

import (
    "github.com/xraph/forge"
    "github.com/xraph/forge/extensions/discovery"
)

app := forge.New(
    forge.WithExtensions(
        discovery.New(
            discovery.WithBackend("mdns"),
            discovery.WithFARP(true),
        ),
    ),
)

The discovery extension will:

1. Generate schemas from your routes (OpenAPI, AsyncAPI)

2. Create a FARP manifest

3. Advertise via mDNS with TXT records

4. Serve /_farp/manifest and /_farp/discovery endpoints

5. Update the manifest when routes change

Gateway Auto-Configuration04

The Forge gateway extension uses FARP to auto-configure routes:

import (
    "github.com/xraph/forge"
    "github.com/xraph/forge/extensions/gateway"
)

gw := forge.New(
    forge.WithExtensions(
        gateway.New(
            gateway.WithFARPDiscovery(true),
            gateway.WithAutoRoutes(true),
        ),
    ),
)

This enables:

• Automatic route registration from discovered FARP manifests

• OpenAPI aggregation — unified /openapi.json for all services

• Health monitoring — poll health endpoints from manifests

• Hot reload — update routes when services change schemas