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Ably

INFRA · APIS
Velocity5.0

Ably is spinning up an AI-agent transport layer at 0.x speed

realtimeai-agentssdkdurable-executionpub-sub
◆Current state
Ably is iterating hard on a new AI Transport SDK — four releases (0.2 through 0.5) in about a month — aimed at making agent conversations durable, resumable, and branchable over its realtime channels. Alongside it, the core Pub/Sub and Chat SDKs keep getting steady, mostly incremental maintenance: React hook ergonomics, presence reliability fixes, and better LiveObjects visibility in the dashboard.
◆Where it's heading
The AI Transport line is the story. Each release layers on capability that matters for production agents — declarative codecs, external data hydration, and now durable execution that survives process restarts inside frameworks like Temporal and Vercel's WDK. Ably is positioning its realtime infrastructure as the transport substrate for AI agents, not just chat and pub/sub, while keeping the mature core SDKs stable. The frequent breaking changes signal a product still finding its API shape.
◆Prediction
Expect the AI Transport SDK to keep its fast breaking-change cadence toward a 1.0 with a stabilized session/run API, and likely SDKs beyond JS as the surface settles. The entries don't yet indicate a GA date.

◆Recent moves

  1. 6h ago

    AI Transport SDK 0.5.0: durable execution for agents

    AI Transport SDK 0.5.0 adds durable execution: a Step primitive lets a single agent turn survive process restarts and at-least-once retries inside frameworks like Temporal and Vercel's WDK, with a re-run step superseding its dead attempt instead of duplicating on the channel. A substantial capability add, still within a fast-moving 0.x line with breaking changes.

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  2. 8d ago

    AI Transport SDK 0.4.0: external data hydration

    AI Transport SDK 0.4.0 adds external data hydration, so an app with its own message store can seed a conversation and reconcile only the missing tail from the Ably channel rather than replaying full history. Continues building production ergonomics into the agent transport.

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  3. 15d ago

    Cocoa SDK: push registration fix before first unlock

    A Cocoa SDK patch fixing an issue where the stored push-notification registration state couldn't be loaded before the device's first unlock after a reboot. Isolated bug fix on the mature client library.

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  4. 20d ago

    AI Transport SDK 0.3.0: declarative codecs, presence pass-through

    AI Transport SDK 0.3.0 makes codec authoring declarative (defineCodec derives encode and decode from one description) and lets Presence and LiveObjects ride the same channel as the AI stream. Ordering and de-duplication move into the transport, hardening conversation convergence.

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  5. 20d ago

    JS SDK 2.23.0: React hooks infer channel from provider

    JS Client Library 2.23.0 lets React channel hooks infer the channel from the nearest ChannelProvider (dropping the channelName argument) and fixes a presence re-enter bug that could NACK after a transient disconnect. Ergonomics and reliability on the core SDK.

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  6. 1mo ago

    Improved visibility into LiveObjects

    The dashboard now shows a realtime stream of each LiveObjects operation and a live visualization of all objects on a channel, viewable under both LiveObjects and Pub/Sub. Observability improvement for the LiveObjects feature rather than a new capability.

    View source ↗