Principle:Ray project Ray Actor Method Invocation
| Knowledge Sources | |
|---|---|
| Domains | Distributed_Computing, Actor_Model |
| Last Updated | 2026-02-13 17:00 GMT |
Overview
A mechanism for invoking methods on a remote actor instance through its handle, maintaining sequential consistency of state mutations.
Description
Actor Method Invocation is the process of sending a method call to a remote actor via its handle. The call is dispatched to the specific worker process hosting the actor, executed sequentially (one at a time unless concurrency groups are configured), and the result is stored in the object store. The caller receives an ObjectRef future for the result, maintaining the same asynchronous pattern as task submission.
Sequential execution guarantees that actor state mutations are consistent — no two method calls execute concurrently on the same actor (by default), eliminating race conditions on internal state.
Usage
Use actor method invocation whenever you need to interact with a remote actor's state. This is the primary communication mechanism in the actor model — each method call is effectively a message sent to the actor.
Theoretical Basis
Actor method invocation implements message passing in the actor model:
The key guarantee is sequential consistency: method calls on a single actor are processed in the order they are received (FIFO ordering per caller).