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Dapr

Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime) is a portable runtime that simplifies building distributed microservices. It provides building-block APIs for service invocation, state management, pub/sub messaging, and secrets, letting applications use these capabilities through HTTP or gRPC without vendor-specific SDKs.

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Dapr

Dapr is a distributed application runtime. It gives your application local HTTP and gRPC APIs for common distributed-system capabilities.

You keep business logic in your service. Dapr handles selected infrastructure interactions through APIs called building blocks. A building block can invoke another service, publish an event, save state, retrieve a secret, run a workflow, or perform another defined capability.

Dapr is not an application framework, message broker, database, or service mesh. It sits between your application and those systems. You choose which building blocks to use and which backing systems to connect.

The mental model: a local adapter

Each Dapr-enabled application runs beside a Dapr runtime process named daprd. This process is usually called a sidecar.

your application
      |
      | local HTTP or gRPC
      v
 Dapr sidecar
      |
      | building-block API
      v
component or another Dapr-enabled application

Your code calls a stable Dapr API. The sidecar translates that call into an interaction with a configured component or another application.

This boundary separates application logic from infrastructure-specific client code. It also adds another runtime process, configuration surface, network hop, and operational dependency. Dapr is useful when the abstraction earns that cost.

Separate building blocks from components

This distinction is the key to reading Dapr documentation.

  • A building block is an HTTP or gRPC API exposed by Dapr.
  • A component is an implementation that supplies a capability behind one or more building blocks.

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