--- title: Building Distributed Systems on the BEAM from First... description: A forum post consolidates an ongoing hands-on series on building distributed systems using Elixir's core process primitives, starting from spawn, send,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/building-distributed-systems-on-the-beam-from-first-principles-consolidated-series-lab-updates--yzqbu8ij9 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Building Distributed Systems on the BEAM from First Principles (Consolidated Series & Lab Updates) | daily.dev og:description: A forum post consolidates an ongoing hands-on series on building distributed systems using Elixir's core process primitives, starting from spawn, send,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/building-distributed-systems-on-the-beam-from-first-principles-consolidated-series-lab-updates--yzqbu8ij9 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/YzqBu8IJ9.png og:image:alt: Building Distributed Systems on the BEAM from First Principles (Consolidated Series & Lab Updates) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Building Distributed Systems on the BEAM from First Principles (Consolidated Series & Lab Updates) **[Elixir Forum](https://daily.dev/sources/elixirforum)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A forum post consolidates an ongoing hands-on series on building distributed systems using Elixir's core process primitives, starting from spawn, send, receive, monitors, and links rather than high-level frameworks. Published parts cover stateful processes without GenServer, correlated request-reply, process monitoring, and process linking, with a 22-module roadmap ahead covering supervisors, registries, worker pools, pub/sub, backpressure, clustering, replication, CRDTs, and a final distributed message queue. All code lives in a GitHub repository with diagrams and explanations, and the author invites feedback as the series continues. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do you monitor a process in Elixir without using GenServer? Use Process.monitor/1 to watch a process and receive a :DOWN message when it terminates, whether normally or abnormally. This lets you detect process termination directly from raw process primitives without relying on OTP's GenServer abstraction, forming a building block for custom supervision logic. _Developers building custom process supervision logic can track Elixir process patterns like this on daily.dev._ ### What is the difference between spawn_link and Process.monitor in Elixir? spawn_link creates a bidirectional link where an abnormal exit propagates and can crash the linked process (unless exits are trapped), while Process.monitor sets up a one-way notification that sends a :DOWN message without affecting the monitoring process. Links are used for coupled failure, monitors for observing without failure propagation. _Anyone comparing Elixir failure-handling primitives can follow deep dives like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Code BEAM America 2025 - Learning Resources / Talks - Elixir Programming Language Forum](https://daily.dev/posts/code-beam-america-2025---learning-resources-talks---elixir-programming-language-forum-bagwzmtsq) · Elixir Forum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Exploring Distributed Elixir](https://daily.dev/posts/exploring-distributed-elixir-iyxsm4dkt) · ElixirStatus · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Writing your own BEAM](https://daily.dev/posts/writing-your-own-beam-qw9kdpc40) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Erlang Solutions Webinar Round-Up](https://daily.dev/posts/erlang-solutions-webinar-round-up-6istivct1) · Erlang Solutions · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A Practitioner's Guide to the BEAM Ecosystem \(self-published\) \(free\)](https://daily.dev/posts/a-practitioner-s-guide-to-the-beam-ecosystem-self-published-free--hizssi87v) · Elixir Forum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#authentication](https://daily.dev/tags/authentication), [#elixir](https://daily.dev/tags/elixir), [#distributed-systems](https://daily.dev/tags/distributed-systems) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/building-distributed-systems-on-the-beam-from-first-principles-consolidated-series-lab-updates--yzqbu8ij9) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Building Distributed Systems on the BEAM from First Principles (Consolidated Series & Lab Updates)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-distributed-systems-on-the-beam-from-first-principles-consolidated-series-lab-updates--yzqbu8ij9","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-distributed-systems-on-the-beam-from-first-principles-consolidated-series-lab-updates--yzqbu8ij9"},"datePublished":"2026-08-14T14:08:16.383Z","dateModified":"2026-08-14T14:08:38.060Z","description":"A forum post consolidates an ongoing hands-on series on building distributed systems using Elixir's core process primitives, starting from spawn, send,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--CxzD6vbw--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2005","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--CxzD6vbw--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2005","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Elixir Forum","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Elixir Forum","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/c7c05785a0da4507bf9ae120a7e487e6","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/elixirforum"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-distributed-systems-on-the-beam-from-first-principles-consolidated-series-lab-updates--yzqbu8ij9","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"authentication,elixir,distributed-systems","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Elixir Forum","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/elixirforum"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Building Distributed Systems on the BEAM from First Principles (Consolidated Series & Lab Updates)"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/building-distributed-systems-on-the-beam-from-first-principles-consolidated-series-lab-updates--yzqbu8ij9#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do you monitor a process in Elixir without using GenServer?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Use Process.monitor/1 to watch a process and receive a :DOWN message when it terminates, whether normally or abnormally. 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