infinispan / infinispan/protostream

Support cascading/fallback SerializationContext

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Dominant language
Java
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5h 36m
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Description

## Background

Infinispan splits proto types across independent `SerializationContext`s that do not know about
each other (user / global / persistence — see
`infinispan: core/src/main/java/org/infinispan/marshall/protostream/impl/SerializationContextRegistryImpl.java`).

`org.infinispan.encoding.ProtostreamTranscoder` must handle payloads whose type is only known at
runtime (wrapped messages, canonical JSON with `_type`). Because no single context knows all the
types, it currently *guesses* the right context by trying the **user** context and, on
`IllegalArgumentException`, retrying the **global** context:

- `unmarshallCascading` — `infinispan: core/src/main/java/org/infinispan/encoding/ProtostreamTranscoder.java:133`
- `fromJsonCascading` — `ProtostreamTranscoder.java:147` (retries only if the message contains the literal `"Unknown type"`)
- `toJsonCascading` — `ProtostreamTranscoder.java:171`
- `getCtxForMarshalling` — `ProtostreamTranscoder.java:181` (manual `canMarshall` ladder)

This is exception-driven, duplicates the "user else global" logic across four sites, string-matches
an error message, and is hard-wired to these two contexts in this one class.

## Request

Support **cascading / fallback contexts** natively (tracked internally as `IPROTO-139`): a
`SerializationContext` can be configured with a fallback context that is consulted when a type
(marshaller or descriptor) is not found in the primary.

Proposed API (overloads in `org.infinispan.protostream.ProtobufUtil`):

```java
public static SerializationContext newSerializationContext(SerializationContext fallback)
public static SerializationContext newSerializationContext(Configuration configuration, SerializationContext fallback)
```

Implementation sketch: give `SerializationContextImpl` an optional fallback reference and make its
lookups (`getMarshallerDelegate` by class/object/typeId/typeName, `getDescriptorByName`/`ByTypeId`,
`canMarshall`, merged `getFileDescriptors`/`getGenericDescriptors`) resolve in the primary first,
cascade to the fallback on a genuine "not found", and throw only when both miss. Refactor the
internal resolution to return nullable rather than using catch-based control flow, so that
non-"not-found" errors (e.g. a type mapped to multiple protobuf types) are still propagated.

Putting the fallback on the impl (rather than a standalone wrapper context) means `WrappedMessage`,
`ProtobufUtil`, and the JSON reader/writer — which already cast to `SerializationContextImpl` — pick
up the cascade for binary and JSON (both directions) with zero changes at those call sites.

## Open questions

- **Type-id collisions:** a numeric `typeId` is only unique within one context; cascading
`getMarshallerDelegate(int)` across contexts with colliding ids could resolve wrongly. Decide
whether to restrict the cascade to name-based lookups or require non-colliding ids.
- Keep the relationship single-level (one fallback) for v1, or allow a guarded chain.

## Resulting Infinispan change (follow-up)

The registry would create the user context with the global context as its fallback, after which
`ProtostreamTranscoder` can drop the four `*Cascading`/ladder methods and simply use the user
context for all runtime-typed conversions.

A full design doc (alternatives, risks, test plan) is drafted at `docs/cascading-serialization-context.md`.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Read docs/cascading-serialization-context.md and the lookup methods in SerializationContextImpl, then inspect the proposed ProtobufUtil overloads and the referenced SerializationContextRegistryImpl and ProtostreamTranscoder entry points. Resolve the type-id collision and fallback-depth questions, implement primary-then-fallback lookup behavior without masking non-not-found errors, and verify that binary and JSON conversions inherit the cascade.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
backend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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