The 'got' npm package is a human-friendly and powerful HTTP request library for Node.js. It provides an easy-to-use API for making HTTP requests and supports many features like streams, pagination, JSON parsing, and more.
Simplified HTTP requests
This feature allows you to perform HTTP GET requests with a promise-based API. The example shows how to fetch a webpage and log the HTML content.
const got = require('got');
got('https://sindresorhus.com').then(response => {
console.log(response.body);
}).catch(error => {
console.log(error.response.body);
});JSON support
This feature automatically parses JSON responses. The example demonstrates fetching JSON data from an API and logging the parsed object.
const got = require('got');
got('https://api.example.com/data', { responseType: 'json' }).then(response => {
console.log(response.body);
}).catch(error => {
console.log(error.response.body);
});POST requests
This feature allows you to send POST requests with JSON bodies. The example shows how to send a POST request with a JSON payload and receive a JSON response.
const got = require('got');
got.post('https://api.example.com/submit', {
json: {
key: 'value'
},
responseType: 'json'
}).then(response => {
console.log(response.body);
}).catch(error => {
console.log(error.response.body);
});Error handling
This feature provides comprehensive error handling for various types of request failures. The example demonstrates how to handle different error scenarios when a request fails.
const got = require('got');
got('https://api.example.com/wrong-endpoint').then(response => {
console.log(response.body);
}).catch(error => {
if (error.response) {
console.log('The server responded with a non-2xx status code.');
} else if (error.request) {
console.log('The request was made but no response was received');
} else {
console.log('An error occurred when trying to perform the request.');
}
});Stream support
This feature allows you to use got as a stream. The example shows how to stream a webpage's content and write it to a file.
const got = require('got');
const fs = require('fs');
const stream = got.stream('https://sindresorhus.com');
stream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('index.html'));Axios is a promise-based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js. It provides an API similar to got but also works in the browser. Axios has interceptors that allow you to transform requests and responses before they are handled by then or catch.
Request is a simplified HTTP request client that was very popular but is now deprecated. It had a callback-based API but also supported promises. Got is considered a modern alternative to Request with promise support by default.
Node-fetch is a light-weight module that brings the Fetch API to Node.js. It is a minimalistic and straightforward API that resembles the Fetch API provided by modern browsers, making it familiar to front-end developers.
Superagent is a small progressive client-side HTTP request library. It has a fluent API that allows chaining methods to configure requests, and it can be used on both server and client side. Compared to got, it has a more object-oriented style.
Simplified HTTP/HTTPS requests
A nicer interface to the built-in http module.
It supports following redirects, promises, streams, retries, automagically handling gzip/deflate and some convenience options.
Created because request is bloated (several megabytes!).
$ npm install --save got
const got = require('got');
// Callback mode
got('todomvc.com', (error, body, response) => {
console.log(body);
//=> '<!doctype html> ...'
});
// Promise mode
got('todomvc.com')
.then(response => {
console.log(response.body);
//=> '<!doctype html> ...'
})
.catch(error => {
console.log(error.response.body);
//=> 'Internal server error ...'
});
// Stream mode
got.stream('todomvc.com').pipe(fs.createWriteStream('index.html'));
// For POST, PUT and PATCH methods got.stream returns a WritableStream
fs.createReadStream('index.html').pipe(got.stream.post('todomvc.com'));
It's a GET request by default, but can be changed in options.
Type: string, object
The URL to request or a http.request options object.
Properties from options will override properties in the parsed url.
Type: object
Any of the http.request options.
Type: string, buffer, readableStream, object
This is mutually exclusive with stream mode.
Body that will be sent with a POST request.
If present in options and options.method is not set, options.method will be set to POST.
If content-length or transfer-encoding is not set in options.headers and body is a string or buffer, content-length will be set to the body length.
If body is a plain object, it will be stringified with querystring.stringify and sent as application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
Type: string, null
Default: 'utf8'
Encoding to be used on setEncoding of the response data. If null, the body is returned as a Buffer.
Type: boolean
Default: false
This is mutually exclusive with stream mode.
Parse response body with JSON.parse and set accept header to application/json.
Type: string, object
Query string object that will be added to the request URL. This will override the query string in url.
Type: number
Milliseconds after which the request will be aborted and an error event with ETIMEDOUT code will be emitted.
Type: number, function
Default: 5
Number of request retries when network errors happens. Delays between retries counts with function Math.pow(2, retry) + Math.random() * 100, where retry is attempt number (starts from 0).
Note: ENOTFOUND and ENETUNREACH error will not be retried (see full list in is-retry-allowed module).
Option accepts function with retry and error arguments. Function must return delay in milliseconds (0 return value cancels retry).
Function to be called when error or data are received. If omitted, a promise will be returned.
Error object with HTTP status code as statusCode property.
The data you requested.
The response object.
When in stream mode, you can listen for events:
request event to get the request object of the request.
Tip: You can use request event to abort request:
got.stream('github.com')
.on('request', req => setTimeout(() => req.abort(), 50));
response event to get the response object of the final request.
redirect event to get the response object of a redirect. The second argument is options for the next request to the redirect location.
error event emitted in case of 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 response object.
Sets options.method to the method name and makes a request.
Each error contains (if available) statusCode, statusMessage, host, hostname, method and path properties to make debugging easier.
In Promise mode, the response is attached to the error.
When a request fails. Contains a code property with error class code, like ECONNREFUSED.
When reading from response stream fails.
When json option is enabled and JSON.parse fails.
When server response code is not 2xx. Contains statusCode and statusMessage.
When server redirects you more than 10 times.
You can use the tunnel module with the agent option to work with proxies:
const got = require('got');
const tunnel = require('tunnel');
got('todomvc.com', {
agent: tunnel.httpOverHttp({
proxy: {
host: 'localhost'
}
})
}, () => {});
You can use the cookie module to include cookies in a request:
const got = require('got');
const cookie = require('cookie');
got('google.com', {
headers: {
cookie: cookie.serialize('foo', 'bar')
}
});
Requests can also be sent via unix domain sockets. Use the following URL scheme: PROTOCOL://unix:SOCKET:PATH.
PROTOCOL - http or https (optional)SOCKET - absolute path to a unix domain socket, e.g. /var/run/docker.sockPATH - request path, e.g. /v2/keysgot('http://unix:/var/run/docker.sock:/containers/json');
// or without protocol (http by default)
got('unix:/var/run/docker.sock:/containers/json');
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.
var got = require('got');
var pkg = require('./package.json');
got('todomvc.com', {
headers: {
'user-agent': 'my-module/' + pkg.version + ' (https://github.com/username/my-module)'
}
}, function () {});
It is a known issue with old good Node 0.10.x http.Agent and agent.maxSockets, which is set to 5. This can cause low performance and in rare cases deadlocks. To avoid this you can set it manually:
require('http').globalAgent.maxSockets = Infinity;
require('https').globalAgent.maxSockets = Infinity;
This should only ever be done if you have Node version 0.10.x and at the top-level app layer.
 |  |
|---|---|
| Sindre Sorhus | Vsevolod Strukchinsky |
MIT © Sindre Sorhus
FAQs
Human-friendly and powerful HTTP request library for Node.js
The npm package got receives a total of 18,760,920 weekly downloads. As such, got popularity was classified as popular.
We found that got demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 2 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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