Hybrid Logical Clocks

Kind: mechanism

Layer: Causality Core

Record: architecture:hybrid-logical-clocks

Severity: contextual

Scope: event, distributed state, time

Canonical: Ontology

A mechanism that combines physical time with a logical counter, so timestamps follow causal order and stay close to wall-clock time.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Lamport Clocks and before CRDTs.

Requires

• Happens-Before Relationship

Reinforces

• Causal Consistency
• Event Ordering

Enables

• Wall-Clock-Correlated Causal Order

Conflicts with

• Physical-Clock-Only Ordering

In tension with

• Clock Skew

Tensions

• Hybrid Logical Clocks / Clock Skew

Violated by

• Physical-Clock-Only Ordering

Severity

• contextual

Category

• Causality / Ordering / Distributed Time

Linked from

• Execution joins the halves
• Causality / Ordering / Distributed Time
• Causality / Ordering / Distributed Time
• Severity levels
• The resolutions