graphql-nats-subscriptions

This package implements the PusSubEngine Interface from the graphql-subscriptions package. It allows you to connect your subscriptions manger to an NATS enabled Pub Sub broker to support horizontally scalable subscriptions setup. This package is an adapted version of graphql-redis-subscriptions package.

Basic Usage

import { NatsPubSub } from 'graphql-nats-subscriptions';
const pubsub = new NatsPubSub(); // connecting to nats://localhost on default
const subscriptionManager = new SubscriptionManager({
  schema,
  pubsub,
  setupFunctions: {},
});

You needs gnatsd daemon running in background. Check out https://nats.io to start on your machine.

Using Trigger Transform

As the graphql-redis-subscriptions package, this package support a trigger transform function. This trigger transform allows you to use the channelOptions object provided to the SubscriptionManager instance, and return trigger string which is more detailed then the regular trigger.

First I create a simple and generic trigger transform

const triggerTransform = (trigger, {path}) => [trigger, ...path].join('.');

Note that I expect a path field to be passed to the channelOptions but you can do whatever you want.

Next, I'll pass the triggerTransform to the NatsPubSub constructor.

const pubsub = new NatsPubSub({
  triggerTransform,
});

Lastly, I provide a setupFunction for commentsAdded subscription field. It specifies one trigger called comments.added and it is called with the channelOptions object that holds repoName path fragment.

const subscriptionManager = new SubscriptionManager({
  schema,
  setupFunctions: {
    commentsAdded: (options, {repoName}) => ({
      'comments/added': {
        channelOptions: { path: [repoName] },
      },
    }),
  },
  pubsub,
});

Note that here is where I satisfy my triggerTransform dependency on the path field.

When I call subscribe like this:

const query = `
  subscription X($repoName: String!) {
    commentsAdded(repoName: $repoName)
  }
`;
const variables = {repoName: 'graphql-redis-subscriptions'};
subscriptionManager.subscribe({ query, operationName: 'X', variables, callback });

The subscription string that Redis will receive will be comments.added.graphql-redis-subscriptions. This subscription string is much more specific and means the the filtering required for this type of subscription is not needed anymore. This is one step towards lifting the load off of the graphql api server regarding subscriptions.

Passing your own client object

The basic usage is great for development and you will be able to connect to any nats enabled server running on your system seamlessly. But for any production usage you should probably pass in your own configured client object;

import { connect } from 'nats';
import { NatsPubSub } from 'graphql-nats-subscriptions';

const client = connect('nats://test.mosquitto.org', {
  reconnectPeriod: 1000,
});

const pubsub = new NatsPubSub({
  client,
});

You can learn more on the nats options object here.

Change encoding used to encode and decode messages

Supported encodings available here

const pubsub = new NatsPubSub({
  parseMessageWithEncoding: 'utf16le',
});

License

graphql-nats-subscriptions is open source under the MIT license