Effect is not a serializable value

[MrOxMasTer]

What is the problem this feature would solve?

More convenient work with other libraries.

The problem is that it is inconvenient to use Effect with other libraries, such as a number of these:

• Next.js - inability to serialize to cache and save function result ('use cache' or unstable_cache)
• Trpc - return promise initially when creating functions and return either promise (Effect.runPromise) or Effect, but because of the impossibility of serialization, I can't use the Effect type

Yes, you can make a promise, but then the Effect type itself is lost and it is not so convenient to control the function in other effects that use this function (promise). You have to work with it as a promis, which is not very convenient, and also removes all the advantages of using the effect:
Here is an example. The person talks about the impossibility of serialization and explains it in a bit more detail. I noticed it in other points, but the gist is the same: https://youtu.be/HInf8wvUovk?t=237

Here's an example of what happens because Effect is not a serializable value:

What is the feature you are proposing to solve the problem?

I don't know yet. Instead of a class, use an object

What alternatives have you considered?

An approximate solution to the problem (Result<T, E>):
https://youtu.be/HInf8wvUovk?t=578

[IMax153]

@MrOxMasTer - it is not possible to serialize an Effect because the AST of instructions described by an Effect may include arbitrary user data which may or may not be serializable, and also includes continuations (i.e. arbitrary functions) which are impossible to serialize. The use of classes to represent individual Effect instructions is irrelevant in this case.

Also, an Effect does not represent a Result, but instead represents a series of instructions to execute to arrive at a result (in Effect the name we give to our result is Exit).

I would suggest looking into Schema for data serialization / deserialization.

[MrOxMasTer]

I would suggest looking into Schema for data serialization / deserialization.

Yes indeed, Effect is not a class, but is still a non-serializable value.
What if I have a different library for validation (like zod). Yours is not suitable for me. It has few interacting libraries with others (with orm, for example drizzle and with other additional libraries for zod). And rpc is not ready yet.
What should I do in this case? Is it really in promise to make an effect and lose all the advantages? Is it really convenient to make a new section of the library (schema, rpc, cache, etc.) for each case, instead of making Effect itself serializable?
Or create some kind of layer between promise and Effect to work with other libraries that don't involve working with Effect (just about everything like: trpc, next-safe-action, next.js). A layer that helps to make a promis from Effect, but understand what errors it returns, the result, etc

[mikearnaldi]

I would suggest looking into Schema for data serialization / deserialization.

Yes indeed, Effect is not a class, but is still a non-serializable value. What if I have a different library for validation (like zod). Yours is not suitable for me. It has few interacting libraries with others (with orm, for example drizzle and with other additional libraries for zod). And rpc is not ready yet. What should I do in this case? Is it really in promise to make an effect and lose all the advantages? Is it really convenient to make a new section of the library (schema, rpc, cache, etc.) for each case, instead of making Effect itself serializable?

Effect represents a computation so it won't ever be possible to perform serialization, what you're asking is the equivalent of serializing const hello = () => console.log("AA"). What you can serialize are result types like Option / Either / Exit albeit not directly with JSON.stringify/JSON.parse. If you want plain JS objects you can return plain JS objects from your computation:

import { Cause, Effect } from "effect"

const program = ...

const result = Effect.runPromise(
  program.pipe(
    Effect.matchCauseEffect({
      onSuccess: (x) => Effect.succeed({ _tag: "Success" as const, value: x }),
      onFailure: (c) => Effect.succeed({ _tag: "Failure" as const, value: Cause.pretty(c) })
    })
  )
)

[mikearnaldi]

Is it really convenient to make a new section of the library (schema, rpc, cache, etc.) for each case, instead of making Effect itself serializable?
Or create some kind of layer between promise and Effect to work with other libraries that don't involve working with Effect (just about everything like: trpc, next-safe-action, next.js)

The whole point of effect is to make things safe and production ready, using libraries like Zod and tRPC that don't allow for bidirectional encoding / decoding is unsafe and out of scope for effect.

[MrOxMasTer]

Effect represents a computation so it won't ever be possible to perform serialization, what you're asking is the equivalent of serializing const hello = () => console.log("AA"). What you can serialize are result types like Option / Either / Exit albeit not directly with JSON.stringify/JSON.parse. If you want plain JS objects you can return plain JS objects from your computation:

I tried using the Exit object, but it still doesn't serialize with next.js and gives an error:

Error: Only plain objects, and a few built-ins, can be passed to Client Components from Server Components. Classes or null prototypes are not supported.       
  [{}]
   ^^
    at Error (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1970:16)
    at renderModelDestructive (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1714:15)
    at request (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1481:29)
    at stringify (<anonymous>)
    at stringify (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:2613:46)
    at emitChunk (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:2643:12)
    at retryTask (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:2716:10)
    at performWork (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1428:21)        
  1968 |             null !== getPrototypeOf(elementReference))
  1969 |         )
> 1970 |           throw Error(
       |                ^
  1971 |             "Only plain objects, and a few built-ins, can be passed to Client Components from Server Components. Classes or null prototypes are not supported." +
  1972 |               describeObjectForErrorMessage(parent, parentPropertyName)
  1973 |           );
Error while saving cache key: ["development","c0752fcdba28f2f16c6634f54e2135fc07d719aff3",[{"path":"user.getByEmail2","getRawInput":"$T","ctx":{},"type":"query","signal":"$undefined","input":"oxmaster@gmail.com","meta":"$undefined","next":"$T"}]] Error: Only plain 
objects, and a few built-ins, can be passed to Client Components from Server Components. Classes or null prototypes are not supported.
  [{}]
   ^^
    at Error (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1970:16)
    at renderModelDestructive (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1714:15)
    at request (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1481:29)
    at stringify (<anonymous>)
    at stringify (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:2613:46)
    at emitChunk (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:2643:12)
    at retryTask (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:2716:10)
    at performWork (webpack://next/dist/compiled/react-server-dom-webpack-experimental/cjs/react-server-dom-webpack-server.edge.development.js:1428:21)        
  1968 |             null !== getPrototypeOf(elementReference))
  1969 |         )
> 1970 |           throw Error(
       |                ^
  1971 |             "Only plain objects, and a few built-ins, can be 
passed to Client Components from Server Components. Classes or null prototypes are not supported." +
  1972 |               describeObjectForErrorMessage(parent, parentPropertyName)
  1973 |           );

Code:

getByEmail2: publicProcedure
    .input(emailSchema)
    .query(async ({ input: email }) => {
      'use cache';

      console.log('GET_BY_EMAIL_2');

      return Effect.gen(function* (_) {
        const db = yield* DBClient;

        const user = yield* _(
          Effect.tryPromise({
            try: () =>
              db.query.users.findFirst({
                where: (users, { eq }) => eq(users.email, email),
              }),
            catch: (error) =>
              new UnknownDatabaseError({
                message: `${error}`,
              }),
          }),
          Effect.filterOrElse(
            (user) => !!user,
            () => new UserNotFoundError(),
          ),
        );

        return yield* Effect.succeed(user);
      }).pipe(Effect.provideService(DBClient, db), Effect.runPromiseExit);
    }),

[MrOxMasTer]

although with JSON.stringify this is serialized:

[fubhy]

You can serialize Exit values with Effect Schema: https://effect.website/docs/schema/effect-data-types/#exit-1

[MrOxMasTer]

You can serialize Exit values with Effect Schema: https://effect.website/docs/schema/effect-data-types/#exit-1

Thanks for the offer. I wrote above that I don't use effect schemas because I use a different library for validation, because it combines with other libraries and I like its syntax better

[fubhy]

Effect Schema is the only validation library to my knowledge that supports bi-directional decoding & encoding. If you are using something else like Zod, you'll have to manually serialize/encode the values.

[MrOxMasTer]

Effect Schema is the only validation library to my knowledge that supports bi-directional decoding & encoding. If you are using something else like Zod, you'll have to manually serialize/encode the values.

I can't help that I have 5 libs that depend on zod: useHookForm, drizzle-orm, next-safe-action, zod-form-data, trpc. So as far as I know useHookForm supports effect. Drizzle - I saw that the package is already being prepared, but I don't know about next-safe-action and zod-form-data. Maybe effect has its own functions to handle form-data? And I will talk to the next-safe-action developer. trpc as far as I have seen can be used with Effect schemes

drizzle-team/drizzle-orm#2665

[MrOxMasTer]

You can serialize Exit values with Effect Schema: https://effect.website/docs/schema/effect-data-types/#exit-1

This helped solve the problem. Exit was already a serializable object, and decode/encode was just a type transformation. I tried to cache both decoded and encoded value, but it still causes an error:

Error: Only plain objects, and a few built-ins, can be passed to Client Components from Server Components. Classes or null prototypes are not supported.
  [{}]
   ^^
    at stringify (<anonymous>)
Error while saving cache key: ["development","c01d88351cfccc89cd44791184b2e36426bd6f7147",[{"path":"user.getByEmail","getRawInput":"$T","ctx":{},"type":"query","signal":"$undefined","input":"oxmaster911@gmail.com","meta":"$undefined","next":"$T"}]] Error: Only plain objects, and a few built-ins, can be passed to Client Components from Server Components. Classes or null prototypes are not supported.
  [{}]
   ^^
    at stringify (<anonymous>)
ААААА:  {"_id":"FiberFailure","cause":{"_id":"Cause","_tag":"Die","defect":{"cause":{"environmentName":"Cache","digest":""},"code":"INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR","name":"TRPCError"}}}
 POST /auth 200 in 2200ms