Platform Architecture

Architecture Overview

A.R.C. organizes its 29 services into four functional layers. Every request flows through the Edge Layer, is processed by the Intelligence Layer, persists in the Data Layer, and is monitored by the Operations Layer.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        Edge Layer                            │
│                 Heimdall (Traefik Gateway)                   │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                    Intelligence Layer                        │
│  Sherlock (Brain) │ Scarlett (Voice) │ RoboCop (Guard)       │
│  Gordon Ramsay (Critic) │ Ivan Drago (Gym) │ Uhura (Semantic)│
│  Statham (Mechanic) │ The Wolf (Janitor) │ Alfred (Billing)  │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                       Data Layer                             │
│  Oracle (Postgres) │ Sonic (Redis) │ Cerebro (Qdrant)        │
│  Tardis (MinIO) │ The Flash (NATS) │ Dr. Strange (Pulsar)    │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                    Operations Layer                          │
│  Black Widow (OTEL) │ Friday (Grafana) │ T-800 (Chaos)       │
│  Dr. House (Prometheus) │ Watson (Loki) │ Columbo (Jaeger)   │
│  Hermes (Promtail) │ Mystique (Unleash)                      │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                    Voice & Sidecars                          │
│  Daredevil (LiveKit) │ Sentry (Ingress) │ Scribe (Egress)    │
│  J.A.R.V.I.S. (Kratos) │ Nick Fury (Infisical)               │
│  Pathfinder (Migrate) │ Hedwig (Mailer)                      │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The Codename System

Every A.R.C. service has a codename that reflects its personality and role. This is not just branding -- it makes the system memorable and makes architecture discussions feel natural. When someone says "Heimdall is down," the entire team knows the gateway is unreachable. When "Sherlock needs more memory," everyone understands the reasoning engine is under pressure.

Infrastructure (The Body)

These are the external, battle-tested open-source services that A.R.C. orchestrates into a cohesive platform.

Service	Codename	Technology	Role
API Gateway	Heimdall	Traefik v3.0	The Gatekeeper. Opens the Bifrost (ports) only for authorized traffic.
Feature Flags	Mystique	Unleash	The Shapeshifter. Changes app behavior instantly without redeploying.
Identity & Auth	J.A.R.V.I.S.	Ory Kratos	The Butler. Handles identity and authentication.
Secrets Vault	Nick Fury	Infisical	The Spymaster. Holds the nuclear codes (secrets). Paranoid for a reason.
Voice Server	Daredevil	LiveKit	The Radar. Sees the world through sound waves (WebRTC).
Messaging	The Flash	NATS	The Nervous System. Information travels so fast it feels like telepathy.
Event Streaming	Dr. Strange	Apache Pulsar	Time Stone. Replays history (events) and sees 14 million outcomes.
Relational DB	Oracle	PostgreSQL 16	Long-Term Memory. The photographic record of truth.
Cache	Sonic	Redis	Working Memory. Holds context at speed; if he stops, he dies.
Vector DB	Cerebro	Qdrant	The Finder. Connects to every thought to find semantic matches.
Object Storage	Tardis	MinIO	Infinite Storage. It's bigger on the inside (S3 compatible).
Telemetry Collector	Black Widow	OpenTelemetry Collector	The Spy. Intercepts all signals and traces without being seen.
Metrics	Dr. House	Prometheus	Diagnostics. Doesn't trust you; trusts the vitals.
Log Aggregation	Watson	Loki	The Chronicler. Writes down every messy detail for later deduction.
Distributed Tracing	Columbo	Jaeger (Tempo)	The Detective. Follows the request path with "just one more thing."
Dashboards	Friday	Grafana	The UI. The visual interface overlay for all metrics.
Log Shipper	Hermes	Promtail	The Messenger. Delivers the logs to Watson.
Chaos Testing	T-800	Chaos Mesh	The Terminator. Absolutely will not stop until your infrastructure is proven resilient.

Data & Memory (The Mind)

Service	Codename	Technology	Role
Relational Database	Oracle	PostgreSQL 16	Long-Term Memory. The photographic record of truth.
In-Memory Cache	Sonic	Redis	Working Memory. High-speed context, rate limiting, and session storage.
Vector Database	Cerebro	Qdrant	The Finder. Semantic search and embedding storage for RAG.
Object Storage	Tardis	MinIO	Infinite Storage. S3-compatible blob storage for files and artifacts.
Database Migrations	Pathfinder	Migration Script	Pioneer. Maps the database schema before anyone else enters.

AI Workforce (Core & Workers)

Service	Codename	Type	Technology	Role
Brain	Sherlock	CORE	LangGraph	The Reasoner. Stateful, persistent agentic reasoning engine.
Voice Agent	Scarlett	CORE	Pipecat	The Voice. Turns raw data into human connection.
Guardrails	RoboCop	CORE	RuleGo	Safety. Prime Directives: stops the agent from going off-script.
Janitor	The Wolf	CORE	Custom	The Fixer. Solves problems and cleans up the mess efficiently.
Billing	Alfred	CORE	Custom	The Manager. Tracks the budget and manages the estate.
Critic	Gordon Ramsay	WORKER	Custom	QA. "This output is RAW!" Yells until the answer is perfect.
Adversarial Trainer	Ivan Drago	WORKER	Custom	Gym. "I must break you." Attacks the agent's logic to find weaknesses.
Semantic Translator	Uhura	WORKER	Custom	Translator. Converts human speech to system commands (SQL/API).
Self-Healing	Statham	WORKER	Custom	Mechanic. Slides under the car to fix the leak while it's still running.

Observability (The Eyes)

Service	Codename	Technology	Role
Telemetry Collector	Black Widow	OpenTelemetry Collector	The Spy. Single front door for all telemetry signals.
Metrics Database	Dr. House	Prometheus	Diagnostics. Scrapes and stores time-series metrics.
Log Aggregation	Watson	Loki	The Chronicler. Centralized log aggregation and search.
Distributed Tracing	Columbo	Jaeger (Tempo)	The Detective. End-to-end request tracing across services.
Dashboards	Friday	Grafana	The UI. Single pane of glass for all observability data.
Log Shipper	Hermes	Promtail	The Messenger. Ships logs from containers to Watson (Loki).

Sidecars & Utilities

Service	Codename	Type	Technology	Role
Database Migrations	Pathfinder	SIDECAR	Script	Pioneer. Runs schema migrations before services start.
Voice Ingress	Sentry	SIDECAR	LiveKit Ingress	The Watchtower. Handles incoming RTMP/SIP streams.
Voice Egress	Scribe	SIDECAR	LiveKit Egress	The Recorder. Archives voice sessions to storage.
Mailer	Hedwig	SIDECAR	Courier	Mail Delivery. Delivers transactional email reliably.

Service Types

Type	Description	Examples
INFRA	External open-source services A.R.C. orchestrates	Traefik, PostgreSQL, Redis, Grafana
CORE	Custom-built services central to A.R.C.'s intelligence	Sherlock (Brain), Scarlett (Voice), RoboCop (Guard)
WORKER	Specialized agents that perform specific tasks	Gordon Ramsay (QA), Ivan Drago (Gym), Uhura (Semantic)
SIDECAR	Utility processes that support other services	Pathfinder (Migrate), Hedwig (Mailer), Sentry (Ingress)

Tier System

A.R.C. offers deployment tiers with pre-selected service groups. Tiers are starting points; you can customize the service list after initialization by editing arc.yaml.

SuperSaiyan (Default)

The default tier ships with 13 base services plus optional feature groups.

Base Infrastructure (13 services, always included): Heimdall, Oracle, Sonic, Cerebro, Tardis, Mystique, Dr. Strange, The Flash, Hedwig, Pathfinder, Sherlock, The Wolf, Alfred

Optional feature groups:

Feature Flag	Services Added	Default
security	J.A.R.V.I.S., Nick Fury, RoboCop	Enabled
voice	Daredevil, Scarlett, Sentry, Scribe	Enabled
observability	Black Widow, Dr. House, Watson, Columbo, Friday, Hermes	Disabled
chaos	T-800	Disabled

Default total: 13 base + 3 security + 4 voice = 20 services

Resource Requirements:

Configuration	Services	CPU (min)	RAM (min)	Storage (min)
Base Only	13	2 cores	4 GB	10 GB
+ Security	16	3 cores	6 GB	12 GB
+ Voice	17	4 cores	8 GB	15 GB
+ Observability	19	6 cores	12 GB	25 GB
All Features	27	8 cores	16 GB	30 GB

SuperSaiyanBlue (Coming Soon)

Production-grade tier with enhanced observability and performance. Includes all SuperSaiyan services plus the full observability stack enabled by default, enhanced caching (Redis Cluster), and advanced event streaming (Kafka + Pulsar).

Planned requirements: 8 cores minimum, 16 GB RAM, 50 GB storage.

UltraInstinct (Coming Soon)

Enterprise tier for large-scale deployments with chaos engineering and advanced diagnostics. Includes all SuperSaiyanBlue services plus Chaos Mesh (T-800), advanced tracing and profiling, and multi-region support.

Planned requirements: 16 cores minimum, 32 GB RAM, 100 GB storage.

Feature Flags

Feature flags control which optional services run. They are set in your arc.yaml and can be toggled at any time.

Flag	Services Added	Resource Impact
voice	Daredevil, Scarlett, Sentry, Scribe	+2 GB RAM
security	J.A.R.V.I.S., Nick Fury, RoboCop	+1.5 GB RAM
observability	Black Widow, Dr. House, Watson, Columbo, Friday, Hermes	+4 GB RAM
chaos	T-800	+1 GB RAM

Service Dependencies

Services declare their dependencies, and A.R.C. resolves them automatically during arc workspace run. If a required dependency is missing from your configuration, you will receive a validation error.

Sherlock (Brain)
├── requires: Oracle (PostgreSQL)
├── requires: Sonic (Redis)
├── requires: Cerebro (Qdrant)
└── requires: The Flash (NATS)

J.A.R.V.I.S. (Identity)
├── requires: Heimdall (Gateway)
└── requires: Oracle (PostgreSQL)

Scarlett (Voice)
├── requires: Sherlock (Brain)
└── requires: Daredevil (LiveKit)

Friday (Grafana)
├── requires: Dr. House (Prometheus)
├── requires: Watson (Loki)
└── requires: Columbo (Jaeger)