Subscriptions

Zeus supports GraphQL over WebSocket subscriptions out-of-the-box and is compatible with many popular GraphQL servers.

Two implementations are supported:

• graphql-ws: the modern WebSocket-based transport, implemented by the graphql-ws package. It is also the standard used by Apollo
• legacy (default): a transport based on raw WebSockets

Generating the client

To use graphql-ws as your subscription transport you'll need to do the following:

# Generate the client
zeus schema.gql ./ --subscriptions graphql-ws
# Add graphql-ws to your project's dependencies
npm install graphql-ws

If you want to use the legacy method, use the --subscriptions legacy flag instead. You may need to install ws depending on your setup.

No matter what implementation you chose, the usage remains the same:

// Create a new Subscription with some authentication headers
const wsChain = Subscription('wss://localhost:4000/graphql', {
  get headers() {
    return { Authorization: `Bearer ${getToken()}` };
  },
});

// Subscribe to new messages
wsChain('subscription')({
  message: {
    body: true,
  },
}).on(({ message }) => {
  console.log(message.body);
});

If you need to unsubscribe from a subscription (e.g. you are developing a Single Page App), you can do it as follows:

// Subscribe to new messages
const onMessage = wsChain('subscription')({
  message: {
    body: true,
  },
});
onMessage.on(({ message }) => {
  console.log(message.body);
});

// Close the underlying connection
onMessage.ws.close();

While you can use wsChain('query') or wsChain('mutation'), Apollo strongly discourages this practice.