An HTTP/1.1 client, written from scratch for Node.js.
Undici means eleven in Italian. 1.1 -> 11 -> Eleven -> Undici. It is also a Stranger Things reference.
Have a question about using Undici? Open a Q&A Discussion or join our official OpenJS Slack channel.
Looking to contribute? Start by reading the contributing guide
npm i undici
The benchmark is a simple getting data example using a 50 TCP connections with a pipelining depth of 10 running on Node 22.11.0.
┌────────────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ Tests │ Samples │ Result │ Tolerance │ Difference with slowest │
├────────────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ 'axios' │ 15 │ '5708.26 req/sec' │ '± 2.91 %' │ '-' │
│ 'http - no keepalive' │ 10 │ '5809.80 req/sec' │ '± 2.30 %' │ '+ 1.78 %' │
│ 'request' │ 30 │ '5828.80 req/sec' │ '± 2.91 %' │ '+ 2.11 %' │
│ 'undici - fetch' │ 40 │ '5903.78 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %' │ '+ 3.43 %' │
│ 'node-fetch' │ 10 │ '5945.40 req/sec' │ '± 2.13 %' │ '+ 4.15 %' │
│ 'got' │ 35 │ '6511.45 req/sec' │ '± 2.84 %' │ '+ 14.07 %' │
│ 'http - keepalive' │ 65 │ '9193.24 req/sec' │ '± 2.92 %' │ '+ 61.05 %' │
│ 'superagent' │ 35 │ '9339.43 req/sec' │ '± 2.95 %' │ '+ 63.61 %' │
│ 'undici - pipeline' │ 50 │ '13364.62 req/sec' │ '± 2.93 %' │ '+ 134.13 %' │
│ 'undici - stream' │ 95 │ '18245.36 req/sec' │ '± 2.99 %' │ '+ 219.63 %' │
│ 'undici - request' │ 50 │ '18340.17 req/sec' │ '± 2.84 %' │ '+ 221.29 %' │
│ 'undici - dispatch' │ 40 │ '22234.42 req/sec' │ '± 2.94 %' │ '+ 289.51 %' │
└────────────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────────┘
import { request } from 'undici'
const {
statusCode,
headers,
trailers,
body
} = await request('http://localhost:3000/foo')
console.log('response received', statusCode)
console.log('headers', headers)
for await (const data of body) { console.log('data', data) }
console.log('trailers', trailers)
The body
mixins are the most common way to format the request/response body. Mixins include:
Note
The body returned from undici.request
does not implement .formData()
.
Example usage:
import { request } from 'undici'
const {
statusCode,
headers,
trailers,
body
} = await request('http://localhost:3000/foo')
console.log('response received', statusCode)
console.log('headers', headers)
console.log('data', await body.json())
console.log('trailers', trailers)
Note: Once a mixin has been called then the body cannot be reused, thus calling additional mixins on .body
, e.g. .body.json(); .body.text()
will result in an error TypeError: unusable
being thrown and returned through the Promise
rejection.
Should you need to access the body
in plain-text after using a mixin, the best practice is to use the .text()
mixin first and then manually parse the text to the desired format.
For more information about their behavior, please reference the body mixin from the Fetch Standard.
This section documents our most commonly used API methods. Additional APIs are documented in their own files within the docs folder and are accessible via the navigation list on the left side of the docs site.
Arguments:
- url
string | URL | UrlObject
- options
RequestOptions
- dispatcher
Dispatcher
- Default: getGlobalDispatcher - method
String
- Default:PUT
ifoptions.body
, otherwiseGET
- dispatcher
Returns a promise with the result of the Dispatcher.request
method.
Calls options.dispatcher.request(options)
.
See Dispatcher.request for more details, and request examples for examples.
Arguments:
- url
string | URL | UrlObject
- options
StreamOptions
- dispatcher
Dispatcher
- Default: getGlobalDispatcher - method
String
- Default:PUT
ifoptions.body
, otherwiseGET
- dispatcher
- factory
Dispatcher.stream.factory
Returns a promise with the result of the Dispatcher.stream
method.
Calls options.dispatcher.stream(options, factory)
.
See Dispatcher.stream for more details.
Arguments:
- url
string | URL | UrlObject
- options
PipelineOptions
- dispatcher
Dispatcher
- Default: getGlobalDispatcher - method
String
- Default:PUT
ifoptions.body
, otherwiseGET
- dispatcher
- handler
Dispatcher.pipeline.handler
Returns: stream.Duplex
Calls options.dispatch.pipeline(options, handler)
.
See Dispatcher.pipeline for more details.
Starts two-way communications with the requested resource using HTTP CONNECT.
Arguments:
- url
string | URL | UrlObject
- options
ConnectOptions
- dispatcher
Dispatcher
- Default: getGlobalDispatcher
- dispatcher
- callback
(err: Error | null, data: ConnectData | null) => void
(optional)
Returns a promise with the result of the Dispatcher.connect
method.
Calls options.dispatch.connect(options)
.
See Dispatcher.connect for more details.
Implements fetch.
- https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WindowOrWorkerGlobalScope/fetch
- https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/#fetch-method
Basic usage example:
import { fetch } from 'undici'
const res = await fetch('https://example.com')
const json = await res.json()
console.log(json)
You can pass an optional dispatcher to fetch
as:
import { fetch, Agent } from 'undici'
const res = await fetch('https://example.com', {
// Mocks are also supported
dispatcher: new Agent({
keepAliveTimeout: 10,
keepAliveMaxTimeout: 10
})
})
const json = await res.json()
console.log(json)
A body can be of the following types:
- ArrayBuffer
- ArrayBufferView
- AsyncIterables
- Blob
- Iterables
- String
- URLSearchParams
- FormData
In this implementation of fetch, request.body
now accepts Async Iterables
. It is not present in the Fetch Standard.
import { fetch } from 'undici'
const data = {
async *[Symbol.asyncIterator]() {
yield 'hello'
yield 'world'
},
}
await fetch('https://example.com', { body: data, method: 'POST', duplex: 'half' })
FormData besides text data and buffers can also utilize streams via Blob objects:
import { openAsBlob } from 'node:fs'
const file = await openAsBlob('./big.csv')
const body = new FormData()
body.set('file', file, 'big.csv')
await fetch('http://example.com', { method: 'POST', body })
'half'
In this implementation of fetch, request.duplex
must be set if request.body
is ReadableStream
or Async Iterables
, however, even though the value must be set to 'half'
, it is actually a full duplex. For more detail refer to the Fetch Standard.
Nodejs has two kinds of streams: web streams, which follow the API of the WHATWG web standard found in browsers, and an older Node-specific streams API. response.body
returns a readable web stream. If you would prefer to work with a Node stream you can convert a web stream using .fromWeb()
.
import { fetch } from 'undici'
import { Readable } from 'node:stream'
const response = await fetch('https://example.com')
const readableWebStream = response.body
const readableNodeStream = Readable.fromWeb(readableWebStream)
This section documents parts of the Fetch Standard that Undici does not support or does not fully implement.
The Fetch Standard allows users to skip consuming the response body by relying on garbage collection to release connection resources. Undici does not do the same. Therefore, it is important to always either consume or cancel the response body.
Garbage collection in Node is less aggressive and deterministic (due to the lack of clear idle periods that browsers have through the rendering refresh rate) which means that leaving the release of connection resources to the garbage collector can lead to excessive connection usage, reduced performance (due to less connection re-use), and even stalls or deadlocks when running out of connections.
// Do
const { body, headers } = await fetch(url);
for await (const chunk of body) {
// force consumption of body
}
// Do not
const { headers } = await fetch(url);
The same applies for request
too:
// Do
const { body, headers } = await request(url);
await res.body.dump(); // force consumption of body
// Do not
const { headers } = await request(url);
However, if you want to get only headers, it might be better to use HEAD
request method. Usage of this method will obviate the need for consumption or cancelling of the response body. See MDN - HTTP - HTTP request methods - HEAD for more details.
const headers = await fetch(url, { method: 'HEAD' })
.then(res => res.headers)
- https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/#cors-safelisted-response-header-name
- https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/#forbidden-header-name
- https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/#forbidden-response-header-name
- wintercg/fetch#6
The Fetch Standard requires implementations to exclude certain headers from requests and responses. In browser environments, some headers are forbidden so the user agent remains in full control over them. In Undici, these constraints are removed to give more control to the user.
Upgrade to a different protocol. See MDN - HTTP - Protocol upgrade mechanism for more details.
Arguments:
- url
string | URL | UrlObject
- options
UpgradeOptions
- dispatcher
Dispatcher
- Default: getGlobalDispatcher
- dispatcher
- callback
(error: Error | null, data: UpgradeData) => void
(optional)
Returns a promise with the result of the Dispatcher.upgrade
method.
Calls options.dispatcher.upgrade(options)
.
See Dispatcher.upgrade for more details.
- dispatcher
Dispatcher
Sets the global dispatcher used by Common API Methods.
Gets the global dispatcher used by Common API Methods.
Returns: Dispatcher
- origin
string | URL | undefined
Sets the global origin used in fetch
.
If undefined
is passed, the global origin will be reset. This will cause Response.redirect
, new Request()
, and fetch
to throw an error when a relative path is passed.
setGlobalOrigin('http://localhost:3000')
const response = await fetch('/api/ping')
console.log(response.url) // http://localhost:3000/api/ping
Gets the global origin used in fetch
.
Returns: URL
- port
string | number
(optional) - path
string
(optional) - pathname
string
(optional) - hostname
string
(optional) - origin
string
(optional) - protocol
string
(optional) - search
string
(optional)
This section documents parts of the HTTP/1.1 specification that Undici does not support or does not fully implement.
Undici does not support the Expect
request header field. The request
body is always immediately sent and the 100 Continue
response will be
ignored.
Refs: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7231#section-5.1.1
Undici will only use pipelining if configured with a pipelining
factor
greater than 1
. Also it is important to pass blocking: false
to the
request options to properly pipeline requests.
Undici always assumes that connections are persistent and will immediately pipeline requests, without checking whether the connection is persistent. Hence, automatic fallback to HTTP/1.0 or HTTP/1.1 without pipelining is not supported.
Undici will immediately pipeline when retrying requests after a failed connection. However, Undici will not retry the first remaining requests in the prior pipeline and instead error the corresponding callback/promise/stream.
Undici will abort all running requests in the pipeline when any of them are aborted.
- Refs: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-8.1.2.2
- Refs: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7230#section-6.3.2
Since it is not possible to manually follow an HTTP redirect on the server-side,
Undici returns the actual response instead of an opaqueredirect
filtered one
when invoked with a manual
redirect. This aligns fetch()
with the other
implementations in Deno and Cloudflare Workers.
Refs: https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/#atomic-http-redirect-handling
If you experience problem when connecting to a remote server that is resolved by your DNS servers to a IPv6 (AAAA record)
first, there are chances that your local router or ISP might have problem connecting to IPv6 networks. In that case
undici will throw an error with code UND_ERR_CONNECT_TIMEOUT
.
If the target server resolves to both a IPv6 and IPv4 (A records) address and you are using a compatible Node version
(18.3.0 and above), you can fix the problem by providing the autoSelectFamily
option (support by both undici.request
and undici.Agent
) which will enable the family autoselection algorithm when establishing the connection.
- Daniele Belardi, https://www.npmjs.com/~dnlup
- Ethan Arrowood, https://www.npmjs.com/~ethan_arrowood
- Matteo Collina, https://www.npmjs.com/~matteo.collina
- Matthew Aitken, https://www.npmjs.com/~khaf
- Robert Nagy, https://www.npmjs.com/~ronag
- Szymon Marczak, https://www.npmjs.com/~szmarczak
- Ethan Arrowood, https://www.npmjs.com/~ethan_arrowood
- Matteo Collina, https://www.npmjs.com/~matteo.collina
- Robert Nagy, https://www.npmjs.com/~ronag
- Matthew Aitken, https://www.npmjs.com/~khaf
Undici aligns with the Node.js LTS schedule. The following table shows the supported versions:
Version | Node.js | End of Life |
---|---|---|
5.x | v18.x | 2024-04-30 |
6.x | v20.x v22.x | 2026-04-30 |
7.x | v24.x | 2027-04-30 |
MIT