wireform-bond

wireform-bond implements Microsoft Bond Compact Binary serialization. Bond uses explicit numeric field IDs for schema evolution, supports nullable types and struct inheritance in the IDL, and encodes with packed delta/type headers and ZigZag varints. Use this package when you need wire compatibility with Bond-based services (Bing, Cosmos DB, and other Microsoft systems) or a compact, ID-driven binary format with a rich schema language.

Key features

• Typeclass API via ToBond and FromBond with Template Haskell deriving
• Compact Binary v1 wire format with packed delta/type field headers
• ZigZag varints for signed integer encoding
• Bond IDL parser and codegen from .bond schema files
• Schema AST with type parameters, field modifiers, and custom attributes
• QuasiQuoter for inline [bond| ... |] schemas

Basic usage

Derive instances for your record types, then encode through the Compact Binary codec:

{-# LANGUAGE DerivingStrategies #-}
{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-}

import Bond.Decode qualified as BD
import Bond.Derive (ToBond (..), FromBond (..), deriveBond)
import Bond.Encode qualified as BE
import Bond.Value qualified as BV
import Data.Int (Int32)
import Data.Text (Text)
import GHC.Generics (Generic)

data Person = Person
  { personName  :: !Text
  , personAge   :: !Int32
  , personEmail :: !Text
  }
  deriving stock (Show, Eq, Generic)

$(deriveBond ''Person)

encodePerson :: Person -> ByteString
encodePerson = BE.encode . toBond

decodePerson :: ByteString -> Either String Person
decodePerson bs = do
  val <- BD.decode BV.BT_STRUCT bs
  fromBond val

alice :: Person
alice = Person "Alice" 30 "alice@example.com"

roundTrip :: Either String Person
roundTrip = decodePerson (encodePerson alice)

For schema-first workflows, parse Bond IDL and generate Haskell types:

{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-}
import Bond.QQ (bond)

[bond|
  struct Person {
    1: string name;
    2: int32 age;
    3: string email;
  }
|]

wireform-gen bond -i schema.bond -o src/Gen/

Performance

Compact Binary encode/decode

Operation	encode	decode	ratio
single Person	168 ns	192 ns	1.14x
[Person] x 100	15742 ns	2140 ns	0.14x

_{Last run 2026-06-27 11:35:54 UTC. ghc-9.8.4 on darwin-aarch64, criterion 1.6.5. Decode is structurally lazy at the Value layer; the [Person] x 100 number reflects only the outer container resolution..}

Decode is structurally lazy at the Value layer: the 100-element list decode resolves only the outer container, deferring per-element materialization until access. This makes random-access patterns fast for large payloads.

The chart and table above are regenerated by wireform-stats from wireform-bond/bench-results/summary/bond-encode-decode.json — the same source the README chart is built from.

Notable modules

Module	Purpose
Bond.Derive	ToBond / FromBond classes and deriveBond
Bond.Encode / Bond.Decode	Compact Binary v1 encoder and decoder
Bond.Value	Dynamic untyped Value ADT with Bond type tags
Bond.Schema / Bond.Parser	Schema AST and .bond IDL parser
Bond.CodeGen / Bond.QQ	Haskell codegen and quasiquoter
Bond.Registry	Runtime schema registry