superagent-cache-plugin

A superagent plugin providing flexible, built-in caching.

Now compatible with superagent 2.x and 3.x.

Contents

• Basic Usage
• Install
• Run Tests
• How Does it Work?
• What Exactly Gets Cached?
• Where Does superagent-cache-plugin Store Data?
• Available Configuration Options
• Supported Caches
• API
• More Usage Examples
• Breaking Change History
• Release Notes

Basic Usage

Require and instantiate superagent-cache-plugin as follows to get the default configuration:

// Require and instantiate a cache module
var cacheModule = require('cache-service-cache-module');
var cache = new cacheModule({storage: 'session'});
 
// Require superagent-cache-plugin and pass your cache module
var superagentCache = require('superagent-cache-plugin')(cache);

Now you're ready for the magic! Just add .use(superagentCache) to any query and your GET and HEAD requests will be cached! Any matching DELETE, POST, PUT, or PATCH requests will automatically invalidate the associated cache key and value as long as you include .use(superagentCache).

superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .end(function (err, response){
    // response is now cached!
    // subsequent calls to this superagent request will now fetch the cached response
  }
);

Enjoy!

Install

npm install superagent-cache-plugin --save

Run Tests

npm test

How Does it Work?

superagent-cache-plugin uses superagent's plugin API to patch requests on a per-query level. This means that using superagent-cache-plugin for a single query will not impact any other queries. Whenever a GET or HEAD request is made with .use(superagentCache), superagent-cache-plugin generates a cache key by stringifying four properties:

• your cache's nameSpace attribute (defaults to undefined if the property is not set)
• you request's URI
• your request's query params whether they're passed as an object or a string
• your request's headers

With the generated cache key, superagent-cache-plugin then checks the cache instance you passed in when you required it. If the key exists, superagent-cache-plugin returns it without performing the HTTP request and if the key does not exist, it makes the request, caches the response object (mostly), and returns it.

What Exactly Gets Cached?

If you don't use the .prune() or .responseProp() chainables detailed in the API, then superagent-cache-plugin will cache a gutted version of the response object. There are two reasons it doesn't just cache the entire response object:

• The object is almost always circular and therefore not feasible to serialize
• The object is huge and would use way more space than necessary

superagent-cache-plugin takes all of the following properties from the response object and clones each of them into a new object which then gets cached:

• response.body
• response.text
• response.headers
• response.statusCode
• response.status
• response.ok

If you find yourself occasionally needing more than this, try out the .prune() or .responseProp() chainables. If your find yourself consistently needing more than this, make a pull request that adds the properties you need.

Where does superagent-cache-plugin store data?

superagent-cache-plugin stores data in whatever cache module you pass into the require command as shown in the Basic Usage demo. It can natively handle any cache that matches cache-service's API. See this list of supported caches to see what works best with your use case. Because cache-service and all of the supported caches have identical APIs, superagent-cache-plugin doesn't care which you use, so pick the one that's best for you or make a new one.

Available Configuration Options

All options that can be passed to the defaults require param can be overwritten with chainables of the same name. All of the below options are detailed in the API section.

• responseProp
• prune
• pruneQuery
• pruneHeader
• expiration
• cacheWhenEmpty
• doQuery
• forceUpdate
• bypassHeaders

The Cache-Control request/response headers related behavior

• Setting the request header Cache-Control: maxe-age=X is an alternative to the .expiration(X) API method call.
• Setting the request header Cache-Control: only-if-cached is an alternative to the .doQuery(false) API method call.
• Setting the Cache-Controlrequest header value to one of maxe-age=0, no-cache, no-storeswitches of caching of the response.

NOTE The plugin respects the server response cache related headers (Cache-Control, Pragma: no-cache, Expires) and calculates proper TTL for cached responses, with the respect to following:

• When the expiration option is unspecified, the default behavior will be no caching, unless the server response Cache-Control header specifies otherwise.
• The expiration=0 specified in options will switch off caching for any request, even when the server specifies that the response is cacheable and provides non-zero TTL via eg. the Cache-Control: max-age=X header.
• The non-zero expiration option value will narrow down any of TTL value specified via server response Cache-Control header.
• When the expiration option value is greater than the TTL specified via server response Cache-Control header, the later wins.

ETag and Last-Modified support.

The ETag and Last-Modified related cache behavior is supported with sending the associated request headers for cached response revalidation and proper handling of the 304 Not Modified response, which results in serving the cached response instead 304 one.

Supported Caches

cache-service-cache-module

A super-light in-memory cache for cache-service or standalone use. Available on NPM.

cache-service

A tiered caching solution capable of wrapping any number of the below supported caches. Available on NPM.

cache-service-redis

A redis wrapper for cache-service or standalone use. Available on NPM.

cache-service-memcached

A memcached wrapper for cache-service or standalone use. Available on NPM.

cache-service-node-cache

An in-memory cache wrapper for cache-service or standalone use. Available on NPM.

API

require('superagent-cache-plugin')(cache, [defaults])

cache is an instance of any of the supported caches and defaults is an object with any of the available configuration options.

Arguments

• (required) cache: the cache instance in which superagent-cache-plugin stores all of its data
• (optional) defaults: an object that allows you to set defaults to be applied to all queries

.get(uri), .head(uri)

Same as superagent except that superagent's response object will be cached.

.put(uri), .post(uri), .patch(uri), .del(uri)

Same as superagent except that the generated cache key will be automatically invalidated when these HTTP verbs are used.

.end(callback ([err,] response [, key]))

Same as superagent except it optionally exposes the key superagent-cache-plugin generates as the third param in the callback's argument list. See the usage example for a more detailed explanation.

.responseProp(prop)

Caution: if you use this function, supergent-cache-plugin will not gut the response object for you. Be sure that the result of your .responseProp() call will never be circular and is not larger than it needs to be. Consider using .prune() if you need to dig several layers into the response object.

If you know you want a single, top-level property from superagent's response object, you can optimize what you cache by passing the property's name here. When used, it causes the .end() function's response to return superagent's response[prop].

Arguments

• prop: string

Example

//response will now be replaced with superagent's response.body
//but all other top-level response properties, such as response.ok and response.status, will be ommitted
superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .responseProp('body')
  .end(function (error, response){
    // handle response
  }
);

.prune(callback (response, gutResponse))

Caution: if you use this function, supergent-cache-plugin will not automatically gut the response object for you (although you can use the gutResponse param to do so manually--more on that below). Be sure that the result of your .prune() callback function will never be circular and is not larger than it needs to be.

If you need to dig several layers into superagent's response, you can do so by passing a function to .prune(). Your prune function will receive superagent's response and should return a truthy value or null. The benefit of using this function is that you can cache only what you need.

Your prune function will optionally receive gutResponse as its second param. This is the method that superagent-cache-plugin calls internally to simplify responses. If, based on some processing within the function you pass to .prune, you decide that no custom return value is necessary, or you would like to take advantage of the default behavior plus some of your own, you can call gutResponse(response) to get the value that superagent-cache-plugin would have returned without a call to .prune.

Arguments

• callback: a function that accepts superagent's response object and the gutResponse function and returns a truthy value or null

Example

var prune = function(r){
  return (r && r.ok && r.body && r.body.user) ? r.body.user : null;
}
 
//response will now be replaced with r.body.user or null
//and only r.body.user will be cached rather than the entire superagent response
superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .prune(prune)
  .end(function (error, response){
    // handle response
  }
);

Example Using gutResponse

var prune = function(r, gutResponse){
  var output = gutResponse(r);
  output.customValue = getCustomValue();
  return output;
}
 
//response will now be superagent-cache-plugin's default output plus `customValue`
//all of which will be cached rather than the entire superagent response
superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .prune(prune)
  .end(function (error, response){
    // handle response
  }
);

.pruneQuery(params)

In the event that you need certain query params to execute a query but cannot have those params as part of your cache key (useful when security or time-related params are sent), use .pruneQuery() to remove those properties. Pass .pruneQuery() an array containing the param keys you want omitted from the cache key.

Arguments

• params: array of strings

Example

//the superagent query will be executed with all params
//but the key used to store the superagent response will be generated without the passed param keys
superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .query(query)
  .pruneQuery(['token'])
  .end(function (error, response){
    // handle response
  }
);

.pruneHeader(options)

This function works just like the .pruneQuery() funciton except that it modifies the arguments passed to the .set() chainable method (headers) rather than those passed to the .query() chainable method.

Arguments

• options: array of strings

Example

//the superagent query will be executed with all headers
//but the key used to store the superagent response will be generated without the passed header keys
superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .set(options)
  .pruneHeader(['token'])
  .end(function (error, response){
    // handle response
  }
);

.expiration(seconds)

Use this function when you need to override your cache's defaultExpiration property for a particular cache entry.

Arguments

• seconds: integer

.cacheWhenEmpty(bool)

Tell superagent-cache-plugin whether to cache the response object when it's false, null, or {}.This is especially useful when using .responseProp() or .prune() which can cause response to be falsy. By default, cacheWhenEmpty is true.

Arguments

• bool: boolean, default: true

.doQuery(bool)

Tell superagent-cache-plugin whether to perform an ajax call if the generated cache key is not found. By default, doQuery is true.

Arguments

• bool: boolean, default: true

.forceUpdate(bool)

Tells superagent-cache-plugin to perform an ajax call regardless of whether the generated cache key is found. By default, forceUpdate is false.

Arguments

• bool: boolean, default: false

.bypassHeaders(headerNames)

Tells superagent-cache-plugin to copy given headers from the current executing request to the response. This is useful for eg. some correlation ID, which binds a request with a response and could be an issue when returning a cached response. Note Bypassed headers are copied only to cached responses.

Arguments

• headerNames: string or array of strings

Example

//the superagent query will be executed with all headers
//but the key used to store the superagent response will be generated without the 'bypassHeaders' header keys
//and the response will have those keys set to the values from the request headers, when served from a cache.
var correlationId = 0;
superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .expiration(1)
  .bypassHeaders(['x-correlation-id'])
  .set('x-correlation-id', correlationId++)
  .end(function (error, response){
    superagent
      .get(uri)
      .use(superagentCache)
      .bypassHeaders(['x-correlation-id'])
      .set('x-correlation-id', correlationId++)
      .end(function (error, response){
        expect(response.header['x-cache']).toBe('HIT');
        expect(response.header['x-correlation-id']).toBe(1);
      });
  }
);

superagentCache.cache

This is the first constructor param you handed in when you instantiated superagent-cache-plugin.

Example

superagent.cache... //You can call any function existing on the cache you passed in

superagentCache.defaults

This is the second constructor param you handed in when you instantiated superagent-cache-plugin.

Example

superagent.defaults... //You can read and update defaults at run time

More Usage Examples

.end() callback argument list options

As an optional parameter in the .end(cb) callback argument list, superagent-cache-plugin can give you the key it generated for each query as follows:

superagent
  .get(uri)
  .use(superagentCache)
  .end(function (err, response, key){
    console.log('GENERATED KEY:', key);
  }
);

This can be useful if you need external access to a cache key and for testing purposes.

However, you can only get it when you pass 3 params to the callback's argument list. The following rules will apply when listing arguments in the .end(cb) callback argument list:

• 1 param: the param will always be response
• 2 params: the params will always be err and response
• 3 params: the params will always be err, response, and key

Breaking Change History

2.0.0

• Now compatible with superagent 2.x and 3.x
• .pruneParams is now .pruneQuery for clarity
• .pruneOptions is now .pruneHeader for clarity
• The resolve function passed to .then no longer exposes the generated cache key like it did when using superagent ^1.3.0 with superagent-cache ^1.5.0 (but using .end still does)