Client Overview

In the Model Control Interface (MCI), a client refers to any application that may need to execute actions by running code through the interface. MCI provides SDKs that developers can integrate into their client applications to enable this functionality.

In this document, however, we focus on describing the underlying behavior and responsibilities of client provided by the SDK rather than the SDKs themselves.

1. Managing connections

The service manager is always active and waiting for incoming connections; therefore, it is the client’s responsibility to initiate and manage the lifecycle of that connection. The client’s connection-management responsibilities include:

• Establishing the initial connection: Initiating a secure, authenticated session with the service manager.
• Maintaining the connection: Sending periodic keep-alive signals to confirm that the client is still active and reachable.
• Handling disconnections: Detecting when the service manager becomes unavailable or the connection is lost, and automatically attempting to reconnect using the appropriate retry strategy.
• Graceful shutdown: Explicitly closing the connection when the client is shutting down to allow the service manager to release associated resources.

2. Send and Receive Requests

Aside connection management, clients are responsible for all communication of actions and events through MCI. This includes:

• Sending requests to the service manager: Clients issue RPCs, that the service manager executes on their behalf.

• Subscribing to server-initiated requests or events: In addition to receiving responses to their own requests, clients must be able to handle messages initiated by the service manager.