Multipart HTTP Requests

Multipart HTTP Protocol is a method for delivering incremental responses over HTTP. It allows you to receive subscription responses in clearly defined chunks, keeping an open connection throughout.

This multipart protocol is built on the Incremental Delivery over HTTP spec. The protocol delivers continuous updates in the format:

--graphql
Content-Type: application/json

{"payload": {"data": { "message": "Hello World!"}}}}
--graphql
Content-Type: application/json

{"payload": {"data": { "message": "How are you?"}}}}
--graphql
Content-Type: application/json

{}
--graphql
Content-Type: application/json

{"payload": {"data": { "message": "Mic Drop"}}}}
--graphql--

You can use multipart messages by setting Accept: multipart/mixed on a GraphQL subscription POST request. Try out the following example:

Example

curl --location 'https://demo-router.fly.dev/graphql' \
--header 'Accept: multipart/mixed' \
--data '{"query":"subscription test {\n currentTime {unixTime}\n}","operationName":"test"}'

Client Integration

To implement Server-Sent Events (SSE) with a GraphQL POST request, you’ll typically need to use a more custom approach than the standard EventSource. Here’s a full example using JavaScript’s fetch API with the ReadableStream interface. You can also copy paste this example in the Developer Console to test it.

var myHeaders = new Headers();
myHeaders.append("Accept", "multipart/mixed");

var raw = JSON.stringify({
  "query": "subscription test {\n currentTime {unixTime}\n}",
  "operationName": "test"
});

var requestOptions = {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: myHeaders,
  body: raw,
  redirect: 'follow'
};

const response = await fetch("https://demo-router.fly.dev/graphql", requestOptions)

// To recieve data as a string we use TextDecoderStream class in pipethrough
const reader = response.body.pipeThrough(new TextDecoderStream()).getReader()

// Consume unless you reload the page. You can also use the AbortController API to close the connection.
while (true) {
  const {value, done} = await reader.read();
  if (done) break;
  // Remove the data: prefix and parse the message
  console.log('Received', JSON.parse(value.replace("data: ", "")));
}

This code doesn’t handle connection issues and retries.