tough-cookie

What is tough-cookie?

The tough-cookie npm package is a robust and flexible implementation of HTTP cookies, allowing for the parsing, manipulation, and serialization of cookie headers. It provides a way to manage cookies for HTTP clients, including support for persistence, cookie jars, and the ability to handle various cookie-related operations as per the RFC 6265 standard.

What are tough-cookie's main functionalities?

Cookie Parsing

This feature allows for the parsing of cookie header strings into Cookie objects, which can then be manipulated or stored.

const Cookie = require('tough-cookie').Cookie;
const cookie = Cookie.parse('key=value; expires=Wed, 09 Jun 2021 10:18:14 GMT');

Cookie Serialization

This feature enables the serialization of Cookie objects back into HTTP header strings, which can be used in HTTP requests.

const Cookie = require('tough-cookie').Cookie;
const cookie = new Cookie({key: 'value', domain: 'example.com', path: '/'});
const header = cookie.toString();

Cookie Jar

The Cookie Jar feature allows for the storage and retrieval of cookies across multiple requests, maintaining state and handling cookie scope such as domain and path.

const { CookieJar } = require('tough-cookie');
const jar = new CookieJar();
jar.setCookieSync('key=value; Domain=example.com', 'http://example.com', { http: true });

Cookie Store Persistence

This feature provides a way to persist cookies between sessions by using a file-based store or other custom store implementations.

const { CookieJar, FileCookieStore } = require('tough-cookie');
const jar = new CookieJar(new FileCookieStore('cookies.json'));
// Cookies within the jar will be persisted to 'cookies.json' file.

Other packages similar to tough-cookie

js-cookie

js-cookie is a simple, lightweight JavaScript API for handling cookies. It works well in the browser and has a simpler API but does not have the Node.js environment support or the advanced features such as cookie jars and persistence that tough-cookie offers.

cookie

The cookie npm package is a simple server-side cookie parsing and serialization library. It is more minimalistic compared to tough-cookie and does not provide a cookie jar or persistence features.

cookies

The cookies package is designed for use with Node.js HTTP servers. It provides cookie parsing and serialization similar to tough-cookie but is tailored for server-side use and does not include a cookie jar implementation.

README

Tough Cookie ·

A Node.js implementation of RFC6265 for cookie parsing, storage, and retrieval.

Getting Started

Install Tough Cookie using npm:

npm install tough-cookie

or yarn:

yarn add tough-cookie

Usage

import { Cookie, CookieJar } from 'tough-cookie'

// parse a `Cookie` request header
const reqCookies = 'ID=298zf09hf012fh2; csrf=u32t4o3tb3gg43; _gat=1'
  .split(';')
  .map(Cookie.parse)
// generate a `Cookie` request header
const cookieHeader = reqCookies.map((cookie) => cookie.cookieString()).join(';')

// parse a Set-Cookie response header
const resCookie = Cookie.parse(
  'foo=bar; Domain=example.com; Path=/; Expires=Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT',
)
// generate a Set-Cookie response header
const setCookieHeader = cookie.toString()

// store and retrieve cookies
const cookieJar = new CookieJar() // uses the in-memory store by default
await cookieJar.setCookie(resCookie, 'https://example.com/')
const matchingCookies = await cookieJar.getCookies('https://example.com/')

[!IMPORTANT] For more detailed usage information, refer to the API docs.

RFC6265bis

Support for RFC6265bis is being developed. As these revisions to RFC6252 are still in Active Internet-Draft state, the areas of support that follow are subject to change.

SameSite Cookies

This change makes it possible for servers, and supporting clients, to mitigate certain types of CSRF attacks by disallowing SameSite cookies from being sent cross-origin.

Example

import { CookieJar } from 'tough-cookie'

const cookieJar = new CookieJar() // uses the in-memory store by default

// storing cookies with various SameSite attributes
await cookieJar.setCookie(
  'strict=authorized; SameSite=strict',
  'http://example.com/index.html',
)
await cookieJar.setCookie(
  'lax=okay; SameSite=lax',
  'http://example.com/index.html',
)
await cookieJar.setCookie('normal=whatever', 'http://example.com/index.html')

// retrieving cookies using a SameSite context
const laxCookies = await cookieJar.getCookies('http://example.com/index.html', {
  // the first cookie (strict=authorized) will not be returned if the context is 'lax'
  // but the other two cookies will be returned
  sameSiteContext: 'lax',
})

[!NOTE] It is highly recommended that you read RFC6265bis - Section 8.8 for more details on SameSite cookies, security considerations, and defense in depth.

Cookie Prefixes

Cookie prefixes are a way to indicate that a given cookie was set with a set of attributes simply by inspecting the first few characters of the cookie's name.

Two prefixes are defined:

• "__Secure-"

  If a cookie's name begins with a case-sensitive match for the string __Secure-, then the cookie was set with a "Secure" attribute.

• "__Host-"

  If a cookie's name begins with a case-sensitive match for the string __Host-, then the cookie was set with a "Secure" attribute, a "Path" attribute with a value of "/", and no "Domain" attribute.

If prefixSecurity is enabled for CookieJar, then cookies that match the prefixes defined above but do not obey the attribute restrictions are not added.

You can define this functionality by passing in the prefixSecurity option to CookieJar. It can be one of 3 values:

1. silent: (default) Enable cookie prefix checking but silently fail to add the cookie if conditions are not met.
2. strict: Enable cookie prefix checking and error out if conditions are not met.
3. unsafe-disabled: Disable cookie prefix checking.

If ignoreError is passed in as true when setting a cookie then the error is silent regardless of the prefixSecurity option (assuming it's enabled).

Example

import { CookieJar, MemoryCookieStore } from 'tough-cookie'

const cookieJar = new CookieJar(new MemoryCookieStore(), {
  prefixSecurity: 'silent',
})

// this cookie will be silently ignored since the url is insecure (http)
await cookieJar.setCookie(
  '__Secure-SID=12345; Domain=example.com; Secure;',
  'http://example.com',
)

// this cookie will be stored since the url is secure (https)
await cookieJar.setCookie(
  '__Secure-SID=12345; Domain=example.com; Secure;',
  'https://example.com',
)

[!NOTE] It is highly recommended that you read RFC6265bis - Section 4.1.3 for more details on Cookie Prefixes.

Node.js Version Support

We follow the Node.js release schedule and support all versions that are in Active LTS or Maintenance. We will always do a major release when dropping support for older versions of node, and we will do so in consultation with our community.