System Architecture

This page describes the architecture of CLP as a whole — not just the backend engine, but the tools, protocol, and interfaces that make up the full calendar infrastructure stack.

CLP is designed as a loosely-coupled set of components working together to provide a complete, developer-first experience for building calendar functionality into modern software products.

Overview Diagram

The diagram below illustrates the main components of CLP and how they interact:

CLP Diagram

Component Breakdown

Protocol Definition (YAML)

Defines all available commands, inputs, and expected responses for the calendar engine. This is the single source of truth used by the CLI tool to generate client libraries.

CLI Tool

Parses the YAML protocol and scaffolds boilerplate code in various target languages. Ensures consistency across all implementations and speeds up integration.

Language-Specific Clients

These libraries abstract away the protocol details and offer clean, idiomatic APIs to application developers. Example: clp-ruby.

CLP Calendar Engine

The core backend system responsible for executing protocol-defined commands. Can be deployed locally or in the cloud.

External Applications

Apps or services that use a client library to communicate with the calendar engine. Could be a SaaS product, a mobile app backend, or a scheduling system.

Data Flow & Communication

  • The protocol is defined once in YAML, versioned, and governed by the community.
  • The CLI tool uses the definition to generate client code and tests.
  • Clients interact with the calendar engine over a TCP connection using structured commands.
  • The calendar engine responds with results, errors, or availability data based on the protocol.

Hosting & Deployment

CLP is designed to be flexible:

  • The calendar engine can be self-hosted or deployed to a managed environment.
  • A public demo instance is planned for easy onboarding and testing.
  • An access key system will provide lightweight authentication for interacting with hosted CLP environments.
  • CI/CD tooling will automate builds and deployments for testing and production.