Simplified HTTP requests
Got is a human-friendly and powerful HTTP request library.
It was created because the popular request
package is bloated:
Got is for Node.js. For browsers, we recommend Ky.
This readme reflects the next major version that is currently in development. You probably want the v9 readme.
Highlights
- Promise & stream API
- Request cancelation
- RFC compliant caching
- Follows redirects
- Retries on failure
- Progress events
- Handles gzip/deflate/brotli
- Timeout handling
- Errors with metadata
- JSON mode
- WHATWG URL support
- Hooks
- Instances with custom defaults
- Composable
- Electron support
- Used by ~2000 packages and ~500K repos
- Actively maintained
See how Got compares to other HTTP libraries
Install
$ npm install got
Usage
const got = ; async { try const response = await ; console; //=> '<!doctype html> ...' catch error console; //=> 'Internal server error ...' };
Streams
const stream = ;const promisify = ;const fs = ;const got = ; const pipeline = ; async { await ; // For POST, PUT, and PATCH methods `got.stream` returns a `stream.Writable` await ;};
Tip: Using from.pipe(to)
doesn't forward errors. If you use it, switch to Stream.pipeline(from, ..., to, callback)
instead (available from Node v10).
API
It's a GET
request by default, but can be changed by using different methods or via options.method
.
got([url], [options])
Returns a Promise for a response
object or a stream if options.stream
is set to true.
url
Type: string | object
The URL to request, as a string, a https.request
options object, or a WHATWG URL
.
Properties from options
will override properties in the parsed url
.
If no protocol is specified, it will throw a TypeError
.
Note: this can also be an option.
options
Type: object
Any of the https.request
options.
baseUrl
Type: string | object
When specified, url
will be prepended by baseUrl
.
If you specify an absolute URL, it will skip the baseUrl
.
Very useful when used with got.extend()
to create niche-specific Got instances.
Can be a string or a WHATWG URL
.
Slash at the end of baseUrl
and at the beginning of the url
argument is optional:
await ;//=> 'https://example.com/v1/hello' await ;//=> 'https://example.com/v1/hello' await ;//=> 'https://example.com/v1/hello'
headers
Type: object
Default: {}
Request headers.
Existing headers will be overwritten. Headers set to null
will be omitted.
stream
Type: boolean
Default: false
Returns a Stream
instead of a Promise
. This is equivalent to calling got.stream(url, [options])
.
body
Type: string | Buffer | stream.Readable
or form-data
instance
Note: The body
option cannot be used with the json
or form
option.
Note: If you provide this option, got.stream()
will be read-only.
If present in options
and options.method
is not set, it will throw a TypeError
.
The content-length
header will be automatically set if body
is a string
/ Buffer
/ fs.createReadStream
instance / form-data
instance, and content-length
and transfer-encoding
are not manually set in options.headers
.
json
Type: object | Array | number | string | boolean | null
(JSON-serializable values)
Note: If you provide this option, got.stream()
will be read-only.
JSON body. If the Content-Type
header is not set, it will be set to application/json
.
context
Type: object
User data. In contrast to other options, context
is not enumerable.
Note: The object is never merged, it's just passed through. Got will not modify the object in any way.
It's very useful for storing auth tokens:
const got = ; const instance = got; async { const context = token: 'secret' ; const response = await ; // Let's see the headers console;};
responseType
Type: string
Default: text
Note: When using streams, this option is ignored.
Parsing method used to retrieve the body from the response. Can be text
, json
or buffer
. The promise has .json()
and .buffer()
and .text()
functions which set this option automatically.
Example:
const body = await ;
resolveBodyOnly
Type: string
Default: false
When set to true
the promise will return the Response body instead of the Response object.
cookieJar
Type: tough.CookieJar
instance
Note: If you provide this option, options.headers.cookie
will be overridden.
Cookie support. You don't have to care about parsing or how to store them. Example.
ignoreInvalidCookies
Type: boolean
Default: false
Ignore invalid cookies instead of throwing an error. Only useful when the cookieJar
option has been set. Not recommended.
encoding
Type: string | null
Default: 'utf8'
Encoding to be used on setEncoding
of the response data. If null
, the body is returned as a Buffer
(binary data).
form
Type: object | true
Note: If you provide this option, got.stream()
will be read-only.
The form body is converted to query string using (new URLSearchParams(object)).toString()
.
If set to true
and the Content-Type
header is not set, it will be set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded
.
searchParams
Type: string | object<string, string | number> | URLSearchParams
Note: The query
option was renamed to searchParams
in Got v10. The query
option name is still functional, but is being deprecated and will be completely removed in Got v11.
Query string that will be added to the request URL. This will override the query string in url
.
If you need to pass in an array, you can do it using a URLSearchParams
instance:
const got = ; const searchParams = 'key' 'a' 'key' 'b'; ; console;//=> 'key=a&key=b'
And if you need a different array format, you could use the query-string
package:
const got = ;const queryString = ; const searchParams = queryString; ; console;//=> 'key[]=a&key[]=b'
timeout
Type: number | object
Milliseconds to wait for the server to end the response before aborting the request with got.TimeoutError
error (a.k.a. request
property). By default, there's no timeout.
This also accepts an object
with the following fields to constrain the duration of each phase of the request lifecycle:
lookup
starts when a socket is assigned and ends when the hostname has been resolved. Does not apply when using a Unix domain socket.connect
starts whenlookup
completes (or when the socket is assigned if lookup does not apply to the request) and ends when the socket is connected.secureConnect
starts whenconnect
completes and ends when the handshaking process completes (HTTPS only).socket
starts when the socket is connected. See request.setTimeout.response
starts when the request has been written to the socket and ends when the response headers are received.send
starts when the socket is connected and ends with the request has been written to the socket.request
starts when the request is initiated and ends when the response's end event fires.
retry
Type: number | object
Default:
- retries:
2
- methods:
GET
PUT
HEAD
DELETE
OPTIONS
TRACE
- statusCodes:
408
413
429
500
502
503
504
- maxRetryAfter:
undefined
- errorCodes:
ETIMEDOUT
ECONNRESET
EADDRINUSE
ECONNREFUSED
EPIPE
ENOTFOUND
ENETUNREACH
EAI_AGAIN
An object representing retries
, methods
, statusCodes
, maxRetryAfter
and errorCodes
fields for the time until retry, allowed methods, allowed status codes, maximum Retry-After
time and allowed error codes.
If maxRetryAfter
is set to undefined
, it will use options.timeout
.
If Retry-After
header is greater than maxRetryAfter
, it will cancel the request.
Delays between retries counts with function 1000 * Math.pow(2, retry) + Math.random() * 100
, where retry
is attempt number (starts from 1).
The retries
property can be a number
or a function
with retry
and error
arguments. The function must return a delay in milliseconds (0
return value cancels retry).
By default, it retries only on the specified methods, status codes, and on these network errors:
ETIMEDOUT
: One of the timeout limits were reached.ECONNRESET
: Connection was forcibly closed by a peer.EADDRINUSE
: Could not bind to any free port.ECONNREFUSED
: Connection was refused by the server.EPIPE
: The remote side of the stream being written has been closed.ENOTFOUND
: Couldn't resolve the hostname to an IP address.ENETUNREACH
: No internet connection.EAI_AGAIN
: DNS lookup timed out.
followRedirect
Type: boolean
Default: true
Defines if redirect responses should be followed automatically.
Note that if a 303
is sent by the server in response to any request type (POST
, DELETE
, etc.), Got will automatically request the resource pointed to in the location header via GET
. This is in accordance with the spec.
decompress
Type: boolean
Default: true
Decompress the response automatically. This will set the accept-encoding
header to gzip, deflate, br
on Node.js 11.7.0+ or gzip, deflate
for older Node.js versions, unless you set it yourself.
Brotli (br
) support requires Node.js 11.7.0 or later.
If this is disabled, a compressed response is returned as a Buffer
. This may be useful if you want to handle decompression yourself or stream the raw compressed data.
cache
Type: object
Default: false
Cache adapter instance for storing cached response data.
dnsCache
Type: object
Default: false
Cache adapter instance for storing cached DNS data.
request
Type: Function
Default: http.request
https.request
(Depending on the protocol)
Custom request function. The main purpose of this is to support HTTP2 using a wrapper.
useElectronNet
Type: boolean
Default: false
When used in Electron, Got will use electron.net
instead of the Node.js http
module. According to the Electron docs, it should be fully compatible, but it's not entirely. See #443 and #461.
throwHttpErrors
Type: boolean
Default: true
Determines if a got.HTTPError
is thrown for error responses (non-2xx status codes).
If this is disabled, requests that encounter an error status code will be resolved with the response
instead of throwing. This may be useful if you are checking for resource availability and are expecting error responses.
agent
Same as the agent
option for http.request
, but with an extra feature:
If you require different agents for different protocols, you can pass a map of agents to the agent
option. This is necessary because a request to one protocol might redirect to another. In such a scenario, Got will switch over to the right protocol agent for you.
const got = ;const HttpAgent = ;const HttpsAgent = HttpAgent; ;
hooks
Type: object<string, Function[]>
Hooks allow modifications during the request lifecycle. Hook functions may be async and are run serially.
hooks.init
Type: Function[]
Default: []
Called with plain request options, right before their normalization. This is especially useful in conjunction with got.extend()
and got.create()
when the input needs custom handling.
See the Request migration guide for an example.
Note: This hook must be synchronous!
hooks.beforeRequest
Type: Function[]
Default: []
Called with normalized request options. Got will make no further changes to the request before it is sent (except the body serialization). This is especially useful in conjunction with got.extend()
and got.create()
when you want to create an API client that, for example, uses HMAC-signing.
See the AWS section for an example.
hooks.beforeRedirect
Type: Function[]
Default: []
Called with normalized request options and the redirect response. Got will make no further changes to the request. This is especially useful when you want to avoid dead sites. Example:
const got = ; ;
hooks.beforeRetry
Type: Function[]
Default: []
Called with normalized request options, the error and the retry count. Got will make no further changes to the request. This is especially useful when some extra work is required before the next try. Example:
const got = ; got;
hooks.afterResponse
Type: Function[]
Default: []
Called with response object and a retry function.
Each function should return the response. This is especially useful when you want to refresh an access token. Example:
const got = ; const instance = got;
hooks.beforeError
Type: Function[]
Default: []
Called with an Error
instance. The error is passed to the hook right before it's thrown. This is especially useful when you want to have more detailed errors.
Note: Errors thrown while normalizing input options are thrown directly and not part of this hook.
const got = ; ;
Response
The response object will typically be a Node.js HTTP response stream, however, if returned from the cache it will be a response-like object which behaves in the same way.
request
Type: object
Note: This is not a http.ClientRequest.
options
- The Got options that were set on this request.
body
Type: string | object | Buffer
(Depending on options.responseType
)
The result of the request.
url
Type: string
The request URL or the final URL after redirects.
requestUrl
Type: string
The original request URL.
timings
Type: object
The object contains the following properties:
start
- Time when the request started.socket
- Time when a socket was assigned to the request.lookup
- Time when the DNS lookup finished.connect
- Time when the socket successfully connected.upload
- Time when the request finished uploading.response
- Time when the request fired theresponse
event.end
- Time when the response fired theend
event.error
- Time when the request fired theerror
event.phases
wait
-timings.socket - timings.start
dns
-timings.lookup - timings.socket
tcp
-timings.connect - timings.lookup
request
-timings.upload - timings.connect
firstByte
-timings.response - timings.upload
download
-timings.end - timings.response
total
-timings.end - timings.start
ortimings.error - timings.start
Note: The time is a number
representing the milliseconds elapsed since the UNIX epoch.
isFromCache
Type: boolean
Whether the response was retrieved from the cache.
redirectUrls
Type: string[]
The redirect URLs.
retryCount
Type: number
The number of times the request was retried.
Streams
Note: Progress events, redirect events and request/response events can also be used with promises.
Note: To access response.isFromCache
you need to use got.stream(url, options).isFromCache
. The value will be undefined until the response
event.
got.stream(url, [options])
Sets options.stream
to true
.
Returns a duplex stream with additional events:
.on('request', request)
request
event to get the request object of the request.
Tip: You can use request
event to abort request:
got ;
.on('response', response)
The response
event to get the response object of the final request.
.on('redirect', response, nextOptions)
The redirect
event to get the response object of a redirect. The second argument is options for the next request to the redirect location.
.on('uploadProgress', progress)
.on('downloadProgress', progress)
Progress events for uploading (sending a request) and downloading (receiving a response). The progress
argument is an object like:
percent: 01 transferred: 1024 total: 10240
If it's not possible to retrieve the body size (can happen when streaming), total
will be null
.
async { const response = await ; console;};
.on('error', error, body, response)
The error
event emitted in case of a protocol error (like ENOTFOUND
etc.) or status error (4xx or 5xx). The second argument is the body of the server response in case of status error. The third argument is a response object.
got.get(url, [options])
got.post(url, [options])
got.put(url, [options])
got.patch(url, [options])
got.head(url, [options])
got.delete(url, [options])
Sets options.method
to the method name and makes a request.
Instances
got.extend([options])
Configure a new got
instance with default options
. The options
are merged with the parent instance's defaults.options
using got.mergeOptions
. You can access the resolved options with the .defaults
property on the instance.
const client = got; client; /* HTTP Request => * GET /demo HTTP/1.1 * Host: example.com * x-unicorn: rainbow */
async { const client = got; const headers = await client; //=> headers['x-foo'] === 'bar' const jsonClient = client; const headers: headers2 = await jsonClient; //=> headers2['x-foo'] === 'bar' //=> headers2['x-baz'] === 'qux'};
Tip: Need more control over the behavior of Got? Check out the got.create()
.
got.mergeOptions(parentOptions, newOptions)
Extends parent options. Avoid using object spread as it doesn't work recursively:
const a = headers: cat: 'meow' wolf: 'bark' 'wrrr';const b = headers: cow: 'moo' wolf: 'auuu'; ...a ...b // => {headers: {cow: 'moo', wolf: ['auuu']}}got // => {headers: {cat: 'meow', cow: 'moo', wolf: ['auuu']}}
Options are deeply merged to a new object. The value of each key is determined as follows:
- If the new property is set to
undefined
, it keeps the old one. - If both properties are an instances of
URLSearchParams
, a new URLSearchParams instance is created. The values are merged usingurlSearchParams.append(key, value)
. - If the parent property is an instance of
URL
and the new value is astring
orURL
, a new URL instance is created:new URL(new, parent)
. - If the new property is a plain
object
:- If the parent property is a plain
object
too, both values are merged recursively into a newobject
. - Otherwise, only the new value is deeply cloned.
- If the parent property is a plain
- If the new property is an
Array
, it overwrites the old one with a deep clone of the new property. - Otherwise, the new value is assigned to the key.
got.defaults
Type: object
The default Got options.
Errors
Each error contains an options
property which are the options Got used to create a request - just to make debugging easier.
got.CacheError
When a cache method fails, for example, if the database goes down or there's a filesystem error.
got.RequestError
When a request fails. Contains a code
property with error class code, like ECONNREFUSED
.
got.ReadError
When reading from response stream fails.
got.ParseError
When server response code is 2xx, and parsing body fails. Includes a response
property.
got.HTTPError
When the server response code is not 2xx. Includes a response
property.
got.MaxRedirectsError
When the server redirects you more than ten times. Includes a response
property.
got.UnsupportedProtocolError
When given an unsupported protocol.
got.CancelError
When the request is aborted with .cancel()
.
got.TimeoutError
When the request is aborted due to a timeout. Includes an event
and timings
property.
Aborting the request
The promise returned by Got has a .cancel()
method which when called, aborts the request.
async { const request = ; // … // In another part of the code if something request; // … try await request; catch error if requestisCanceled // Or `error instanceof got.CancelError` // Handle cancelation // Handle other errors };
Cache
Got implements RFC 7234 compliant HTTP caching which works out of the box in-memory and is easily pluggable with a wide range of storage adapters. Fresh cache entries are served directly from the cache, and stale cache entries are revalidated with If-None-Match
/If-Modified-Since
headers. You can read more about the underlying cache behavior in the cacheable-request
documentation. For DNS cache, Got uses cacheable-lookup
.
You can use the JavaScript Map
type as an in-memory cache:
const got = ;const map = ; async { let response = await ; console; //=> false response = await ; console; //=> true};
Got uses Keyv internally to support a wide range of storage adapters. For something more scalable you could use an official Keyv storage adapter:
$ npm install @keyv/redis
const got = ;const KeyvRedis = ; const redis = 'redis://user:pass@localhost:6379'; ;
Got supports anything that follows the Map API, so it's easy to write your own storage adapter or use a third-party solution.
For example, the following are all valid storage adapters:
const storageAdapter = ;// Orconst storageAdapter = ;// Orconst QuickLRU = ;const storageAdapter = maxSize: 1000; ;
View the Keyv docs for more information on how to use storage adapters.
Proxies
You can use the tunnel
package with the agent
option to work with proxies:
const got = ;const tunnel = ; ;
Alternatively, use global-agent
to configure a global proxy for all HTTP/HTTPS traffic in your program.
Cookies
You can use the tough-cookie
package:
const got = ;const CookieJar = ; const cookieJar = ;cookieJar; ;
Form data
You can use the form-data
package to create POST request with form data:
const fs = ;const got = ;const FormData = ; const form = ; form; got;
OAuth
You can use the oauth-1.0a
package to create a signed OAuth request:
const got = ;const crypto = ;const OAuth = ; const oauth = ; const token = key: processenvACCESS_TOKEN secret: processenvACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET; const url = 'https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/home_timeline.json'; ;
Unix Domain Sockets
Requests can also be sent via unix domain sockets. Use the following URL scheme: PROTOCOL://unix:SOCKET:PATH
.
PROTOCOL
-http
orhttps
(optional)SOCKET
- Absolute path to a unix domain socket, for example:/var/run/docker.sock
PATH
- Request path, for example:/v2/keys
; // Or without protocol (HTTP by default);
AWS
Requests to AWS services need to have their headers signed. This can be accomplished by using the aws4
package. This is an example for querying an "API Gateway" with a signed request.
const got = ;const AWS = ;const aws4 = ; const chain = ; // Create a Got instance to use relative paths and signed requestsconst awsClient = got; const response = await ;
Testing
You can test your requests by using the nock
package to mock an endpoint:
const got = ;const nock = ; ; async { const response = await ; console; //=> 'Hello world!'};
For real integration testing we recommend using ava
with create-test-server
. We're using a macro so we don't have to server.listen()
and server.close()
every test. Take a look at one of our tests:
;
Tips
JSON mode
By default, if you pass an object to the body
option it will be stringified using JSON.stringify
. Example:
const got = ; async { const body = await got; console; //=> '{"hello":"world"}'};
To receive a JSON body you can either set responseType
option to json
or use promise.json()
. Example:
const got = ; async { const body = await got; console; //=> {...}};
User Agent
It's a good idea to set the 'user-agent'
header so the provider can more easily see how their resource is used. By default, it's the URL to this repo. You can omit this header by setting it to null
.
const got = ;const pkg = ; ; ;
304 Responses
Bear in mind; if you send an if-modified-since
header and receive a 304 Not Modified
response, the body will be empty. It's your responsibility to cache and retrieve the body contents.
Custom endpoints
Use got.extend()
to make it nicer to work with REST APIs. Especially if you use the baseUrl
option.
Note: Not to be confused with got.create()
, which has no defaults.
const got = ;const pkg = ; const custom = got; // Use `custom` exactly how you use `got`async { const list = await ;};
Tip: Need to merge some instances into a single one? Check out got.mergeInstances()
.
Experimental HTTP2 support
Got provides an experimental support for HTTP2 using the http2-wrapper
package:
const got = ;const request = ; const h2got = got; async { const body = await ; console;};
Comparison
got |
request |
node-fetch |
axios |
superagent |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|
HTTP/2 support | ❔ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️** |
Browser support | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️* | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Electron support | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Promise API | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Stream API | ✔️ | ✔️ | Node.js only | ❌ | ✔️ |
Request cancelation | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
RFC compliant caching | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Cookies (out-of-box) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Follows redirects | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Retries on failure | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Progress events | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | Browser only | ✔️ |
Handles gzip/deflate | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Advanced timeouts | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Timings | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Errors with metadata | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
JSON mode | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Custom defaults | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Composable | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Hooks | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Issues open | |||||
Issues closed | |||||
Downloads | |||||
Coverage | unknown | ||||
Build | |||||
Bugs | |||||
Dependents | |||||
Install size |
* It's almost API compatible with the browser fetch
API.
** Need to switch the protocol manually.
❔ Experimental support.
Install size of the dependencies
Dependency | Install size |
---|---|
@sindresorhus/is | |
@szmarczak/http-timer | |
cacheable-request | |
decompress-response | |
duplexer3 | |
get-stream | |
lowercase-keys | |
mimic-response | |
p-cancelable | |
to-readable-stream | |
Related
- gh-got - Got convenience wrapper to interact with the GitHub API
- gl-got - Got convenience wrapper to interact with the GitLab API
- travis-got - Got convenience wrapper to interact with the Travis API
- graphql-got - Got convenience wrapper to interact with GraphQL
- GotQL - Got convenience wrapper to interact with GraphQL using JSON-parsed queries instead of strings
Maintainers
Sindre Sorhus | Szymon Marczak | Alexander Tesfamichael | Brandon Smith | Luke Childs |
Former
Tidelift helps make open source sustainable for maintainers while giving companies
assurances about security, maintenance, and licensing for their dependencies.