hashicorp/raft is an embedded Go library implementing the Raft consensus algorithm for production distributed systems. In operation it manages a replicated log across a cluster: it performs leader election with pre-vote and leadership transfer extensions, replicates log entries from leader to followers with a quorum-based commit rule, snapshots and restores the replicated state machine, and handles cluster membership changes (voters, nonvoters, staging servers) via log-based configuration entries. It is the consensus engine embedded in HashiCorp Consul, Nomad, and Vault. There is no main package; it is consumed as a library through api.go entry points such as NewRaft, BootstrapCluster, RecoverCluster, Apply, AddVoter, RemoveServer, and LeadershipTransfer. Architecturally it is an interface-driven library: consumers plug in an FSM, LogStore, StableStore, SnapshotStore, and Transport. The core state machine lives in raft.go (runFollower/runCandidate/runLeader, processRPC), replication is handled by replication.go, quorum commit tracking by commitment.go, and a Future-based async pattern wraps all public API calls. The network transport (net_transport.go) abstracts any StreamLayer with connection pooling, FSM pipelining, and a heartbeat fast-path; in-memory stores and transports are provided for testing and embedding. The data flow is: Apply enqueues a log future, the leader appends it, replication sends AppendEntries to peers, commitment.go advances the commit index once a quorum matches, and a dedicated runFSM loop applies committed entries to the FSM. Snapshots are periodically written and shipped to lagging followers via InstallSnapshot. External runtime dependencies are deliberately small: go-hclog for logging, go-msgpack/v2 for wire encoding, and go-metrics (the deprecated armon implementation by default, with hashicorp/go-metrics opt-in behind a build tag). The repository also contains a significant verification wing: a fuzzy/ fault-injection cluster framework that exercises partitions, slow voters, membership churn, and leadership transfer while verifying FSM/log consistency, plus a raft-compat/ package that runs rolling-upgrade and pre-vote migration tests against a pinned older version. This gives the repo a hybrid character of production library plus research-grade protocol verification harness, but the dominant identity is a reusable application library. The project is actively maintained: commits land frequently (last commit 2026-10-12), CI runs via GitHub Actions, dependabot is enabled with zero alerts, and issues are triaged (58 open). Technical drift is medium: legacy protocol versions 0/1 and deprecated AddPeer/RemovePeer/peers.json paths are retained for backward compatibility, the default metrics dependency (armon/go-metrics) is deprecated, and the README/Makefile lag reality (README claims Go 1.16 while go.mod requires Go 1.25, and the Makefile pins golangci-lint v1.19.0 which is very old). These are compatibility burdens and documentation lag rather than rot; the core protocol code is current and well-tested.