Baker Zone Lifecycle: One Godot Process Per Zone

The Context

The baker and zone server are the same Godot headless binary in different lifecycle states. Zone visibility is controlled by a status field already needed for private player-owned zones. Baking is not special — a baking zone is simply a private zone whose owner has not yet made it public.

The Decision

One Godot process per zone. On boot the process registers via POST /shards with status set to whatever the owner chooses (private zones start private; public zones start public). The baker starts private, posts progress through status on each PUT /shards/:id heartbeat, and flips to public when the pipeline finishes. Each zone’s map field (set to the asset UUID) gives it an isolated Hilbert spatial partition.

Zone schema additions

Field	Type	Notes
`status`	string	Owner-controlled. Conventions: `"private"`, `"public"`, `"draining"`. Baker uses `"baking:validate"` → `"baking:export"` → `"baking:chunk"` → `"baking:upload"` → `"public"`.
`public`	boolean	`GET /shards` (unauthenticated) returns only `public: true` zones. Zone owner can always see their own zones.

Both fields apply equally to creator-owned private zones and baker zones. Setting public: false keeps any zone off the public listing for any reason.

Boot sequence (baker)

boot
  → POST /shards  {map: asset_id, status: "baking:validate", public: false, …}
  → validate scene
  → PUT /shards/:id  {status: "baking:export"}
  → export .scn
  → PUT /shards/:id  {status: "baking:chunk"}
  → chunk with casync
  → PUT /shards/:id  {status: "baking:upload"}
  → upload chunks to /chunks
  → PUT /shards/:id  {status: "public", public: true}
  → enter WebTransport event loop
  → PUT /shards/:id  heartbeat every 25 s (status unchanged)

A private player-owned zone follows the same pattern with status: "private" and public: false indefinitely.

Spatial isolation

map is set to the asset_id UUID. Concurrent bakers with different asset_id values occupy disjoint Hilbert regions by definition.

Status

Status: Accepted

Decision Makers

iFire