Swift Community Update: Valkey Client 1.0 and Embedded Swift Highlights

Introducing valkey-swift 1.0: A Modern Swift Client for Valkey

April brings a major milestone for server-side Swift developers: the release of valkey-swift 1.0, a production-grade client library for Valkey. Adam Fowler, one of the library’s authors and an active contributor to the Swift on server ecosystem, shares the story behind this new tool.

Valkey is a high-performance datastore, commonly used as a caching layer or message broker in server applications. It emerged as an open source fork of Redis after licensing changes, and valkey-swift is designed to work seamlessly with both Valkey and Redis servers.

Built for Swift 6 and Structured Concurrency

Valkey-swift is built from the ground up with Swift 6 and structured concurrency. Every command returns typed responses checked at compile time, and strict concurrency checking is enabled throughout the library. This means data races are caught by the compiler, not in production. Connections and subscriptions are scoped through structured concurrency, ensuring automatic cleanup of resources.

The client covers every standard Valkey command, with the code auto-generated from Valkey’s own command specifications. This approach keeps the library in sync as the server evolves, without manual updates.

Why a New Library?

Previously, the de facto Swift client for Redis was RediStack, built on pre-concurrency concepts. Retrofitting structured concurrency would have been awkward, and some of the new features in valkey-swift would have been infeasible. Around the same time, Redis changed its licensing, prompting the open source fork Valkey. The timing felt right for a clean break and a fresh library that fully embraces modern Swift.

If you’re building server-side Swift and need a fast key-value store, you can add valkey-swift via Swift Package Manager. For those migrating from RediStack, a detailed migration guide is available. Complete documentation and open source contributions are welcomed on GitHub.

Videos to Watch: Embedded Swift and Concurrency

The try! Swift Tokyo 2026 conference featured two exciting talks on Embedded Swift, a growing area of interest in the Swift community.

Getting Started with Embedded Swift

This short, accessible introductory talk covers writing Swift using embedded simulators and includes code examples that run on devices such as the Game Boy Advance. Perfect for developers curious about Swift’s reach beyond traditional platforms.

Learn by Building: Bare-Metal Programming with Embedded Swift

A deeper dive into Embedded Swift, this talk walks through five bare-metal examples for the Raspberry Pi Pico. The sample code is available for you to follow along and experiment with.

For those wanting to master Swift concurrency, a live online Q&A session with engineers who designed and use concurrency features is now available to watch. Additionally, Nil Coalescing published a video on Advanced Techniques for Working with Optionals in Swift, highlighting lesser-known options for handling optional values.

Stay tuned for more Swift updates next month.