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Migration Guide

The NATS ecosystem has grown a lot since the 2.0 release of the nats (nats.js) client. NATS currently runs in several JavaScript runtimes: Deno, Browser, and Node/Bun.

While the organization of the library has served developers well, there are a number of issues we would like to address going forward:

  • Strict SemVer on the libraries. Any API break will signal a major version bump, this will allow you to opt-in on upgrades knowing that major version bumps may require updating your code.
  • Better presentation of NATS technologies to developers that are interested in KV, ObjectStore or JetStream.
  • Smaller dependencies for those that are only interested in the NATS core functionality.
  • More agility and independence to each of the modules, as well as their own version.
  • Easier understanding of the functionality in question, as each repository hosting the individual libraries will focus on the API provided by that library.
  • Reduce framework dependency requirements where possible.

In order to satisfy those needs, the NATS JavaScript library has split into separate libraries which focus on:

  • NatsCore @nats-io/nats-core - publish/subscribe/request-reply.
  • JetStream @nats-io/jetstream (depends on @nats-core)
  • KV @nats-io/kv (depends on JetStream)
  • ObjectStore @nats-io/obj (depends on JetStream)
  • Services @nats-io/services (depends on NatsCore)

The transports have also been migrated:

  • @nats-io/transport-node has all the functionality of the original nats.js
  • @nats-io/transport-deno has all the functionality of nats.deno
  • nats.ws is now part of @nats-io/nats-core as it can be used from Deno or latest version of Node directly or any runtime that has standard W3C Websocket support.

Note that when installing @nats-io/transport-node or @nats-io/transport-deno, the @nats-io/core APIs are also made available.

Your library selection process will start by selecting your runtime, and importing any additional functionality you may be interested in. The @nats-io/transport-node, @nats-io/transport-deno depend on and re-export @nats-io/core.

To use the extended functionality (JetStream, KV, ObjectStore, Services) you will need to install and import from the other libraries to access those APIs.

For example, developers that use JetStream can access it by using the functions jetstream() and jetstreamManager() and provide their NATS connection. Note that the NatsConnection#jetstream/Manager() APIs are no longer available.

Developers interested in KV or ObjectStore can access the resources by calling creating a Kvm and calling create() or open() using either a JetStreamClient or a plain NatsConnection. Note that the JetStreamClient#views API is also no longer available.

Other add-ons such as those found in Orbit.js will require an interface (NatsConnection, JetStreamClient, etc) reducing the complexity for packaging these modules for cross-runtime consumption.

Changes to Clients

Changes in Nats Base Client

  • QueuedIterator type incorrectly exposed a push() operation - this operation is not public API and was removed from the interface.
  • The internal type TypedSubscription and associated interfaces have been removed, these were supporting legacy JetStream APIs (subscribe/pullSubscribe(). If you were using these internal types to transform the types in the subscription, take a look at messagepipeline.
  • The utilities JSONCodec and StringCodec have been removed, the Msg types and derivatives can set string or Uint8Array payloads. To read payloads as string or JSON use string() and json() methods on Msg or its derivatives. For publishing JSON payloads, simply specify the output of JSON.stringify() to the publish or request operation.
  • NatsError was removed in favor of more descriptive types. For example, if you make a request, the request could fail with a RequestError or TimeoutError. The RequestError in turn will contain the cause such as NoRespondersError. This also means that in TypeScript, the callback signature has been relaxed to just (Error, Msg)=>void. For more information see the JsDocs.
  • Previous versions of the client provided the enums Events and DebugEvents for the type values in the notification received via status(): AsyncIterable<Status> iterator. Starting with this release, reported status provide their own types which means that they provide richer data and are easier to use from different modules, since you can provide the string name of the type. For more information see Lifecycle and Informational and Events
  • Subscription#closed now resolves to void or an Error (it doesn't throw). The error is the reason why the subscription closed.
  • RequestStrategy "Jitter" is now called "stall" to adopt the term used by new implementations in other clients and the RequestStrategy enum is now a type alias to simple strings "timer", "count", "stall", "sentinel".
  • SHA256 a support type for object store has been moved to @nats-io/obj
  • Base64Codec, Base64UrlCodec, Base64UrlPaddedCodec support types for object store have been moved to @nats-io/obj.

Changes in JetStream

To use JetStream, you must install and import @nats/jetstream.

  • jetStream() and jetStreamManager() functions on the NatsConnection have been removed. Install and import the JetStream library, and call jetstream(nc: NatsConnection) or jetstreamManager(nc: NatsConnection)
  • The views property in the JetStream client has been removed - install the KV or ObjectStore library.
  • jetstreamManager.listKvs() and jetstreamManager.listObjectStores() apis have been removed. Use the list() methods provided the Kvm and ObjM APIs instead.
  • JetStreamClient#subscribe(), JetStreamClient#fetch() have been removed. Use the Consumers API to get() your consumer.
  • OrderedConsumerOptions#filterSubjects changed to OrderedConsumerOptions#filter_subjects.
  • Consumer.status() now returns AsyncIterable<ConsumerStatus> instead of a Promise<AsyncIterable<ConsumerStatus>>
  • JetStreamClient.pull() was deprecated and was removed. Use Consumer.next().
  • The utility function consumerOpts() and associated function isConsumerOptsBuilder() have been removed. Alongside of it ConsumerOptsBuilder which was used by subscribe() and pullSubscribe() type has also been removed.
  • JetStream errors are now expressed by the type JetStreamError and JetStreamAPIError. Common errors such as ConsumerNotFound, and StreamNotFound, JetStreamNotEnabled are subtypes of the above. For API calls where the server could return an error, these are JetStreamAPIError and contain all the information returned by the server.
  • JetStream Stream.getMessage() will now return null if when a message not found error raises, this simplifies client usage and aligns with other APIs in the client.
  • MsgRequest for Stream#getMessage() removed deprecated number argument.
  • For non-ordered consumers next/fetch() can will now throw/reject when heartbeats are missed.
  • The ConsumerEvents and ConsumerDebugEvents enum has been removed and replaced with ConsumerNotification which have a discriminating field type. The status objects provide a more specific API for querying those events.
  • The JsMsg.next() API has been retracted as the simplified consumer next(), and consume() provide the necessary functionality.

Changes to KV

To use KV, you must install and import @nats-io/kv, and create an instance of Kvm:

import { connect } from "@nats-io/transport-deno";
import { jetstream } from "@nats-io/jetstream";
import { Kvm } from "@nats-io/kv";
const nc = await connect();
let kvm = new Kvm(nc);
// or create a JetStream which allows you to specify jetstream options
const js = jetstream(nc, { timeout: 3000 });
kvm = new Kvm(js);

// To list KVs:
await kvm.list();

// To create a KV and open it:
await kvm.create("mykv");

// To access a KV but fail if it doesn't exist:
await kvm.open("mykv");

KvWatchOption.initializedFn has been removed

Previous versions of Kv.watch() allowed the client to specify a function that was called when the watch was done providing history values. In this version, you can find out if a watch is yielding an update by examining the isUpdate property. Note that an empty Kv will not yield any watch information. You can test for this initial condition, by getting the status of the KV, and inspecting the values property, which will state the number of entries in the Kv. Also note that watches with the option to do updates only, cannot notify until there's an update.

Removal of deprecations

Removed deprecated KV apis (KvRemove - remove(k)=>Promise<void>, close()=>Promise<void>) and options (maxBucketSize, placementCluster,bucket_location)

Removed the deprecated option backingStore from KvOptions and KvStatus. Use KvOptions.storage and KvStatus.storage.

Changes to ObjectStore

Caution

Clients prior to 3.x used to shim the global crypto automatically. crypto is available on node 20 and better. Please upgrade your node runtime or shim crypto:

if (typeof globalThis.crypto === "undefined") {
  const c = require("crypto");
  global.crypto = c.webcrypto;
}

To use ObjectStore, you must install and import @nats-io/obj.

Watch

Object.watch() now returns an ObjectWatchInfo which is an ObjectInfo but adding the property isUpdate this property is now true when the watch is notifying of a new entry. Note that previously the iterator would yield ObjectInfo | null, the null signal has been removed. This means that when doing a watch on an empty ObjectStore you won't get an update notification until an actual value arrives.

Removed deprecations

Removed deprecated ObjectStoreInfo - use ObjectStoreStatus

Changes to Services Framework

To use services, you must install and import @nats-io/services, and create an instance of Svc, which allows you to add() a service and create a ServiceClient client(nc):

const svc = new Svcm(nc);
const service = await svc.add({
  name: "max",
  version: "0.0.1",
  description: "returns max number in a request",
  statsHandler,
});

// other manipulation as per service api...
  • services property has been removed. Install and import the Services library, and call Svcm(nc: NatsConnection)