john napiorkowski (‎jnap‎)

Saturday, 29 November 2025 15:20

20 minutes

Intermediate

English 

Abstract — PAGI (Perl ASGI) Project

The PAGI project aims to bring modern asynchronous web application capabilities to the Perl ecosystem by implementing an ASGI-inspired interface that allows Perl applications to handle HTTP and lifespan events using async/await semantics. Modeled after Python’s ASGI, PAGI establishes a language-agnostic gateway layer between web servers and application logic, enabling high-performance request handling, graceful startup/shutdown workflows, and future scalability toward real-time and streaming protocols.

Unlike traditional Perl web frameworks—which operate in a synchronous, PSGI-style request/response lifecycle—PAGI introduces structured concurrency for IO, allowing workloads to be offloaded efficiently or parallelized using async pipelines, worker pools, or hybrid designs, without abandoning Perl’s synchronous DBI compatibility or legacy integration requirements. The project addresses challenges inherent in modern web workloads, such as WebSocket handling, service startup signaling, long-lived connections, and system orchestrations, while remaining backwards compatible with existing Perl infrastructure.

By providing a clean abstraction around application lifecycle, event loops, and shared state propagation, PAGI positions Perl for modern compute environments including containerized deployments, edge systems, and MCP-driven AI service orchestration. The result is a forward-looking architecture that retains Perl’s strengths in reliability and performance on synchronous workloads while opening the door to next-generation async services, including low-latency chat systems, high-throughput API gateways, and AI middleware integrations. 

perl