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0033. Socket state follows lifecycle, not delivery readiness

Status: Accepted · 2026-08-13 · #275 Governed by: 0013, 0016, 0028

TL;DR Public Socket connection state follows Socket.IO lifecycle timing. Server lifecycle state stays separate from client delivery readiness, mutable client auth is read for every manual connection, and recovery remains unsupported.

Decision​

Socket.IO server sockets report connected as false in connection middleware, true in connection and disconnecting, then false in disconnect. The disconnected getter is its exact inverse. Smocket changes these values at the same lifecycle boundaries.

The server socket state cannot also represent whether the paired client has fired its connect event. During the server connection handler the server socket is connected while the client is still in the pre-connect delivery window. Volatile delivery therefore reads a separate private client-readiness value and keeps the drop rule from 0016.

Socket.IO exposes mutable client auth and reads it when a connection starts. Smocket retains stable lookup options but resolves the current socket.auth on every manual connect(), including dynamic namespace admission. Object replacement and callback auth can therefore supply a fresh handshake value after disconnect.

Smocket does not reproduce connection-state recovery. Its server and client recovered values are false for every completed connection. This observable value does not add packet restoration, reconnect automation, recovery identifiers, or recovery buffers.

Client active, receiveBuffer, and sendBuffer remain outside the public contract. active describes Manager reconnection policy, while the buffers expose parser and transport lifecycle details beyond the in-memory delivery boundary.

Alternatives rejected​

  • Derive server state from the paired client. This makes the server appear disconnected during its own connection handler and couples lifecycle state to volatile delivery readiness.
  • Capture auth only at construction. Application token rotation through socket.auth would not reach a later manual connection.
  • Implement recovery to expose recovered. The property can truthfully stay false without adding the recovery behavior excluded by project scope.
  • Expose internal client buffers. Their contents and timing belong to parser and transport behavior that Smocket does not reproduce.