diff --git a/tractor/msg/__init__.py b/tractor/msg/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..906627c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tractor/msg/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# tractor: structured concurrent "actors".
+# Copyright 2018-eternity Tyler Goodlet.
+
+# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
+
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+# GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
+
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
+# along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+'''
+Built-in messaging patterns, types, APIs and helpers.
+
+'''
+from .ptr import (
+    NamespacePath as NamespacePath,
+)
+from .types import (
+    Struct as Struct,
+)
diff --git a/tractor/msg.py b/tractor/msg/ptr.py
similarity index 98%
rename from tractor/msg.py
rename to tractor/msg/ptr.py
index ca34dba..550626a 100644
--- a/tractor/msg.py
+++ b/tractor/msg/ptr.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 # along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 
 '''
-Built-in messaging patterns, types, APIs and helpers.
+IPC-compat cross-mem-boundary object pointer.
 
 '''
 
diff --git a/tractor/msg/types.py b/tractor/msg/types.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..25e7b39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tractor/msg/types.py
@@ -0,0 +1,251 @@
+# tractor: structured concurrent "actors".
+# Copyright 2018-eternity Tyler Goodlet.
+
+# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
+# it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by
+# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
+# (at your option) any later version.
+
+# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+# GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
+
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License
+# along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+'''
+Extensions to built-in or (heavily used but 3rd party) friend-lib
+types.
+
+'''
+from __future__ import annotations
+from collections import UserList
+from pprint import (
+    saferepr,
+)
+from typing import (
+    Any,
+    Iterator,
+)
+
+from msgspec import (
+    msgpack,
+    Struct as _Struct,
+    structs,
+)
+
+
+class DiffDump(UserList):
+    '''
+    Very simple list delegator that repr() dumps (presumed) tuple
+    elements of the form `tuple[str, Any, Any]` in a nice
+    multi-line readable form for analyzing `Struct` diffs.
+
+    '''
+    def __repr__(self) -> str:
+        if not len(self):
+            return super().__repr__()
+
+        # format by displaying item pair's ``repr()`` on multiple,
+        # indented lines such that they are more easily visually
+        # comparable when printed to console when printed to
+        # console.
+        repstr: str = '[\n'
+        for k, left, right in self:
+            repstr += (
+                f'({k},\n'
+                f'\t{repr(left)},\n'
+                f'\t{repr(right)},\n'
+                ')\n'
+            )
+        repstr += ']\n'
+        return repstr
+
+
+class Struct(
+    _Struct,
+
+    # https://jcristharif.com/msgspec/structs.html#tagged-unions
+    # tag='pikerstruct',
+    # tag=True,
+):
+    '''
+    A "human friendlier" (aka repl buddy) struct subtype.
+
+    '''
+    def _sin_props(self) -> Iterator[
+        tuple[
+            structs.FieldIinfo,
+            str,
+            Any,
+        ]
+    ]:
+        '''
+        Iterate over all non-@property fields of this struct.
+
+        '''
+        fi: structs.FieldInfo
+        for fi in structs.fields(self):
+            key: str = fi.name
+            val: Any = getattr(self, key)
+            yield fi, key, val
+
+    def to_dict(
+        self,
+        include_non_members: bool = True,
+
+    ) -> dict:
+        '''
+        Like it sounds.. direct delegation to:
+        https://jcristharif.com/msgspec/api.html#msgspec.structs.asdict
+
+        BUT, by default we pop all non-member (aka not defined as
+        struct fields) fields by default.
+
+        '''
+        asdict: dict = structs.asdict(self)
+        if include_non_members:
+            return asdict
+
+        # only return a dict of the struct members
+        # which were provided as input, NOT anything
+        # added as type-defined `@property` methods!
+        sin_props: dict = {}
+        fi: structs.FieldInfo
+        for fi, k, v in self._sin_props():
+            sin_props[k] = asdict[k]
+
+        return sin_props
+
+    def pformat(
+        self,
+        field_indent: int = 2,
+        indent: int = 0,
+
+    ) -> str:
+        '''
+        Recursion-safe `pprint.pformat()` style formatting of
+        a `msgspec.Struct` for sane reading by a human using a REPL.
+
+        '''
+        # global whitespace indent
+        ws: str = ' '*indent
+
+        # field whitespace indent
+        field_ws: str = ' '*(field_indent + indent)
+
+        # qtn: str = ws + self.__class__.__qualname__
+        qtn: str = self.__class__.__qualname__
+
+        obj_str: str = ''  # accumulator
+        fi: structs.FieldInfo
+        k: str
+        v: Any
+        for fi, k, v in self._sin_props():
+
+            # TODO: how can we prefer `Literal['option1',  'option2,
+            # ..]` over .__name__ == `Literal` but still get only the
+            # latter for simple types like `str | int | None` etc..?
+            ft: type = fi.type
+            typ_name: str = getattr(ft, '__name__', str(ft))
+
+            # recurse to get sub-struct's `.pformat()` output Bo
+            if isinstance(v, Struct):
+                val_str: str =  v.pformat(
+                    indent=field_indent + indent,
+                    field_indent=indent + field_indent,
+                )
+
+            else:  # the `pprint` recursion-safe format:
+                # https://docs.python.org/3.11/library/pprint.html#pprint.saferepr
+                val_str: str = saferepr(v)
+
+            obj_str += (field_ws + f'{k}: {typ_name} = {val_str},\n')
+
+        return (
+            f'{qtn}(\n'
+            f'{obj_str}'
+            f'{ws})'
+        )
+
+    # TODO: use a pprint.PrettyPrinter instance around ONLY rendering
+    # inside a known tty?
+    # def __repr__(self) -> str:
+    #     ...
+
+    # __str__ = __repr__ = pformat
+    __repr__ = pformat
+
+    def copy(
+        self,
+        update: dict | None = None,
+
+    ) -> Struct:
+        '''
+        Validate-typecast all self defined fields, return a copy of
+        us with all such fields.
+
+        NOTE: This is kinda like the default behaviour in
+        `pydantic.BaseModel` except a copy of the object is
+        returned making it compat with `frozen=True`.
+
+        '''
+        if update:
+            for k, v in update.items():
+                setattr(self, k, v)
+
+        # NOTE: roundtrip serialize to validate
+        # - enode to msgpack binary format,
+        # - decode that back to a struct.
+        return msgpack.Decoder(type=type(self)).decode(
+            msgpack.Encoder().encode(self)
+        )
+
+    def typecast(
+        self,
+
+        # TODO: allow only casting a named subset?
+        # fields: set[str] | None = None,
+
+    ) -> None:
+        '''
+        Cast all fields using their declared type annotations
+        (kinda like what `pydantic` does by default).
+
+        NOTE: this of course won't work on frozen types, use
+        ``.copy()`` above in such cases.
+
+        '''
+        # https://jcristharif.com/msgspec/api.html#msgspec.structs.fields
+        fi: structs.FieldInfo
+        for fi in structs.fields(self):
+            setattr(
+                self,
+                fi.name,
+                fi.type(getattr(self, fi.name)),
+            )
+
+    def __sub__(
+        self,
+        other: Struct,
+
+    ) -> DiffDump[tuple[str, Any, Any]]:
+        '''
+        Compare fields/items key-wise and return a ``DiffDump``
+        for easy visual REPL comparison B)
+
+        '''
+        diffs: DiffDump[tuple[str, Any, Any]] = DiffDump()
+        for fi in structs.fields(self):
+            attr_name: str = fi.name
+            ours: Any = getattr(self, attr_name)
+            theirs: Any = getattr(other, attr_name)
+            if ours != theirs:
+                diffs.append((
+                    attr_name,
+                    ours,
+                    theirs,
+                ))
+
+        return diffs