Core concepts
The vocabulary of the Real-Time Web: the Now Layer, now-URIs, bi-links, Data Channels, and morphing.
A handful of ideas show up throughout the RTW. This page defines them once.
The Now Layer
The Now Layer is a live, synchronized model of the present that any authorized node can read from or write to. It sits above physical devices and services and below the applications that consume them. Instead of asking "what was the last value this API returned?", a node asks the Now Layer "what is true right now?" — and is notified the moment that changes.
now-URIs
Every thing and every stream on the RTW gets a web-native address called a now-URI. A now-URI resolves to current state, not a stored file. Resolving one gives you back a bi-link you can subscribe to.
now://acme.example/warehouse-3/dock-doors/7now-URIs are hierarchical and human-readable, and they carry identity and permission metadata so the network can decide what a caller is allowed to see.
Bi-links
A bi-link is a two-way connection between a consumer and a live source. Once established it delivers changes in both directions with no polling: the source pushes new state as it happens, and the consumer can push commands or updates back. Closing the application closes the bi-link.
Data Channels
A Data Channel is a private, permissioned pipe that fans multiple live sources into one subscription for one consumer. You decide which sources feed a channel; the consumer sees a single stream and never gets direct access to the underlying sources.
Morphing
Sources and consumers rarely share an identical data model. Morphing transforms live state as it crosses a bi-link so it fits the consumer’s local model — units, field names, resolution, shape — without ever storing a copy. The consumer subscribes once and receives data already in the form it expects.
Morph Space
Morph Space is the network that provides all of the above: now-URI resolution, the Now Layer fabric, Data Channels, morphing, and the identity layer that ties them together. See Morph Space.