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Concept

You interact with actors through a *PID. You don’t need to know whether the actor is local (same process) or remote ( another node). The same Tell/Ask APIs work in both cases.

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How it works

  • Local — Message is enqueued directly into the actor’s mailbox.
  • Remote — Message is serialized, sent over TCP, deserialized on the target node, and enqueued there.
The caller uses the same pid.Tell(msg) or pid.Ask(ctx, msg, timeout) regardless of location.

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The Path interface

pid.Path() returns a Path interface—the location-transparent actor identity: 
type Path interface {
    Host() string
    HostPort() string
    Port() int
    Name() string
    Parent() Path
    String() string
    System() string
    Equals(other Path) bool
}
Use Path() for host, port, name, and string representation. Guard for nil when the sender is unknown (e.g., NoSender).

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When location matters

Use pid.IsLocal() or pid.IsRemote() when you need location-specific behavior (e.g., avoiding remote calls for hot paths, or logging).

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ActorOf

ActorOf(ctx, name) returns a *PID whether the actor is local or remote. The framework looks up the actor in the local tree first, then in the cluster registry. You get a unified handle either way.