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World Engine is built on a modern, scalable architecture designed for high-performance onchain games. This section provides an overview of the key architectural components and design principles.

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Core Components

World Engine stack

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Cardinal (Game Shard)

Cardinal is the core game server that handles:
  • Entity Component System (ECS): Efficient game state management
  • Command Processing: Handling player actions and game logic
  • Query System: Real-time game state queries
  • Event System: Game event emission and processing
  • Inter-Shard Communication: Communication between multiple game instances

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Gateway

Gateway is a service within the World Engine stack that sits in front of your Cardinal shards that handles:
  • Argus ID integration: Handles Persona signing (in conjunction with Argus ID)
  • One door to your Cardinal shards: Set the URL in your SDK config, and forget that it even exists

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Client SDKs

Client integration via JavaScript SDK (@argus-labs/sdk-ts):
  • JavaScript SDK: Complete client-side solution with TypeScript support
  • Real-time Events: Built-in event streaming for reactive gameplay
  • Authentication: Argus ID integration (Sign in with Argus ID)
TODO: Add C# SDK

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Argus ID

Independent from World Engine, Argus ID is an auth service that allows you to build games without worrying about user authentication.

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Design Principles

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1. ECS-First Architecture

Built around Entity Component System patterns for:
  • High performance with large numbers of entities
  • Flexible game logic composition
  • Predictable execution order

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2. Command-Query Separation

Clear separation between:
  • Commands: Actions that modify game state
  • Queries: Read-only access to game state
  • Events: Reactive notifications of state changes

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3. Tick-Based Execution

Deterministic game loop with:
  • Fixed tick rate for consistent gameplay
  • Batch processing for performance
  • Deterministic execution order

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4. Inter-Shard Scalability

Designed for horizontal scaling:
  • Multiple game shards for different regions/instances
  • Cross-shard communication protocols
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