Why WebAssembly? TAHO’s choice of WebAssembly (Wasm) as its execution substrate is fundamental to achieving its revolutionary performance and security characteristics. Unlike traditional container runtimes that virtualize at the OS level, WebAssembly provides a secure, portable instruction format that runs at near-native speed.
Near-Native Performance 95% of native speed with JIT compilation and optimized instruction set
Polyglot Support Write in any language that compiles to Wasm: Rust, C++, Go, Python, JavaScript
Secure by Design Memory-safe sandbox with capability-based security model
WebAssembly vs Containers The WebAssembly Advantage Instant Deployment Traditional container deployment involves multiple costly steps:
TAHO with WebAssembly streamlines this to:
WebAssembly modules are typically 100x smaller than container images and can be streamed and instantiated in microseconds, not seconds.
True Polyglot Support Write components in your language of choice:
Rust
C/C++
Go
Python
JavaScript
#[no_mangle] pub extern "C" fn process ( input : i32 ) -> i32 { // High-performance system components input * 2 }
Security Sandbox WebAssembly provides defense-in-depth security:
Memory Isolation
Each module has its own linear memory space with bounds checking on every access: ;; Memory access is bounds-checked ( i32 .load ( i32 .const 0 )) ;; Safe ( i32 .load ( i32 .const -1 )) ;; Trapped
Capability-Based Security
Modules must explicitly import capabilities: world secure-component { // No ambient authority - must import everything import filesystem : interface { read : func ( path : string ) -> result < bytes , error >; } import network : interface { connect : func ( host : string ) -> result < socket , error >; } }
Control Flow Integrity
No arbitrary jumps or code injection:
Structured control flow only
No raw pointer manipulation
Type-safe function calls
Stack isolation
TAHO’s WebAssembly Runtime Stack TAHO supports multiple WebAssembly runtimes for different use cases:
WasmTime (Default)
WasmEdge
Wasm-Micro
Wasmtime - Production-grade runtime with excellent performance[runtime] engine = "wasmtime" [runtime.wasmtime] cranelift_opt_level = "speed" parallel_compilation = true memory_pool_size = 1000
Best for : General-purpose workloads, production deployments
JIT compilation with Cranelift
Excellent spec compliance
Production-hardened
WasmEdge - Optimized for edge computing and AI workloads[runtime] engine = "wasmedge" [runtime.wasmedge] enable_aot = true enable_simd = true enable_threads = true
Best for : AI/ML inference, edge deployments
AOT compilation support
WASI-NN for neural networks
Lightweight footprint
Wasm-Micro - Ultra-lightweight for embedded systems[runtime] engine = "wasm-micro" [runtime.wasm_micro] stack_size = 64 KB heap_size = 256 KB
Best for : IoT devices, resource-constrained environments
Minimal memory usage
Interpreter-based
< 100KB runtime size
Component Model & WIT TAHO uses the WebAssembly Component Model with WIT (WebAssembly Interface Types) for composable, type-safe interfaces:
Basic WIT Definition package taho : example @ 0.1.0; // Define types record user { id: u64, name: string, email: string, } record order { id: u64, user-id: u64, items: list<item>, total: float64, } record item { sku: string, quantity: u32, price: float64, } // Define interfaces interface order-service { create-order : func ( user : user , items : list < item >) -> result < order , string >; get-order : func ( id : u64 ) -> result < order , string >; list-orders : func ( user-id : u64 ) -> list < order >; } // Export world world ecommerce { export order-service ; // Import capabilities import logging ; import database ; import messaging ; }
Type Safety Across Languages The same WIT interface generates type-safe bindings in any language:
Rust Bindings
TypeScript Bindings
Python Bindings
// Auto-generated from WIT impl OrderService for Component { fn create_order (& mut self , user : User , items : Vec < Item >) -> Result < Order , String > { // Type-safe implementation } }
Memory Management TAHO optimizes WebAssembly memory usage for maximum efficiency:
Memory Pooling // TAHO pre-allocates memory pools let pool = PoolingAllocationConfig :: default () . instance_memory_pages ( 256 ) // 16MB per instance . instance_table_elements ( 1000 ) // Function pointers . instance_count ( 10000 ); // Max concurrent components
Shared Memory Components can share memory for zero-copy data transfer:
interface shared-buffer { // Zero-copy buffer sharing create-buffer : func ( size : u32 ) -> buffer-handle ; write-buffer : func ( handle : buffer-handle , data : list < u8 >); read-buffer : func ( handle : buffer-handle ) -> list < u8 >; }
Shared memory requires careful synchronization. Use TAHO’s built-in primitives for safe concurrent access.
Ahead-of-Time Compilation For production workloads, pre-compile to native code:
# Compile to native ahead-of-time taho compile my-component.wasm --target native --optimize speed # Results in 5-10% performance improvement # at the cost of larger binary size
SIMD Instructions Enable SIMD for data-parallel operations:
#[target_feature(enable = "simd128" )] pub fn process_batch ( data : &[ f32 ]) -> Vec < f32 > { // Vectorized operations data . chunks_exact ( 4 ) . flat_map (| chunk | { let v = f32x4 :: from_slice ( chunk ); ( v * f32x4 :: splat ( 2.0 )). to_array () }) . collect () }
Bulk Memory Operations Use bulk memory instructions for efficient data transfer:
( memory .copy ( i32 .const 0 ) ;; destination ( i32 .const 1000 ) ;; source ( i32 .const 4096 ) ;; size )
Advanced Features Interface Linking Components can compose through interface dependencies:
// Component A exports interface data-processor { process : func ( input : list < u8 >) -> list < u8 >; } // Component B imports and re-exports world composed-service { import data-processor ; export enhanced-processor : interface { process-with-validation : func ( input : list < u8 >) -> result < list < u8 >, string >; } }
Resource Handles Manage stateful resources across component boundaries:
resource connection { constructor(url: string); send: func(data: list<u8>) -> result<_, error>; receive: func() -> result<list<u8>, error>; } interface network { connect : func ( url : string ) -> connection ; }
Debugging WebAssembly Components TAHO provides comprehensive debugging support:
Source Maps
Tracing
Profiling
# Build with debug info cargo build --target wasm32-wasi wasm-tools component new target/wasm32-wasi/debug/component.wasm \ -o component.debug.wasm \ --embed-source # Deploy with debugging enabled taho deploy component.debug.wasm --debug
use tracing ::{info, debug, error}; #[instrument] fn process_request ( input : & str ) -> Result < String , Error > { debug! ( "Processing request: {}" , input ); // Component logic info! ( "Request processed successfully" ); Ok ( result ) }
# Profile component execution taho profile my-component --duration 60s # Generates flamegraph and performance report # Shows hot functions, memory allocation, etc.
Best Practices
Target < 1MB compiled size
Split large components into micro-components
Use dynamic linking for shared libraries
Strip debug symbols for production
Design for incremental processing
Use streaming APIs over batch
Implement backpressure handling
Minimize memory allocation
Never trust user input
Validate at component boundaries
Use capability-based security
Audit imported interfaces
Enable runtime security features
Next Steps 
