An introduction to qb-core, the heart of the QB Actor Framework, enabling concurrent application logic via actors, events, and multi-core scheduling. Provides an overview and navigation for the QB-Core module documentation.

QB-Core Module: The Actor Model Engine

Welcome to the qb-core module documentation. qb-core is the high-performance C++17 library that brings the Actor Model to life within the QB Framework. Building directly upon the asynchronous foundation provided by qb-io, qb-core empowers you to design and implement complex concurrent applications by composing independent, message-driven actors.

This section provides a detailed exploration of qb-core's architecture, its fundamental abstractions like actors and events, the engine that drives them, and common patterns for their use.

Key Topics in This Section:

QB-Core: Key Features & Capabilities
- A summary of the core features provided by the QB Actor Engine, including actor lifecycle management, the event system, concurrency and scheduling capabilities, and common actor utilities.
QB-Core: Mastering qb::Actor
- A comprehensive guide to defining, initializing, and managing the lifecycle of actors using the qb::Actor base class, including state management and event handler implementation.
QB-Core: Event Messaging Between Actors
- Detailed information on defining custom events derived from qb::Event, the various methods actors use to send events (push, send, broadcast, reply, forward), and how events are received and processed.
QB-Core: Engine - qb::Main & VirtualCore
- An explanation of the QB actor system's engine, detailing how qb::Main orchestrates VirtualCore worker threads and how actors are scheduled and executed within this environment.
QB-Core: Common Actor Patterns & Utilities
- Discover and learn how to implement common and effective actor-based design patterns with QB, such as Finite State Machines, Service Actors, Periodic Callbacks, Referenced Actors, and Dependency Resolution.

How to Use This Section

Begin with the Key Features & Capabilities for a high-level understanding.
Study Mastering qb::Actor and Event Messaging to learn the fundamentals of creating and communicating with actors.
Understand the Engine (qb::Main & VirtualCore) to grasp how the system operates and scales.
Explore Common Actor Patterns for practical ways to structure your application logic.

By mastering qb-core, you can build sophisticated, concurrent applications that are both performant and easier to reason about compared to traditional multi-threaded approaches.

(Next: If you haven't already, ensure you understand the QB-IO Module Overview as qb-core builds upon it. Then, proceed to Core & IO Integration Overview to see how these two modules work together in practice.)**