In general, techniques are described for communicating state information in distribute operating system. A network device comprises a first hardware node and a second hardware node. The first hardware node may execute a first instance of a distributed operating system, and maintain a first data structure that stores a plurality of objects defining a portion of state information. The second hardware node may execute a second instance of the distributed operating system, and maintain a second data structure that stores synchronized versions of the plurality of objects. The first hardware node may further receive updated state information, update the first data structure to include the updated state information, and synchronize the updated first data structure with the second data structure. The second hardware node may synchronize the second data structure with the updated first data structure.