Client-Request

A simple client request library for node.js.

It parses the body according to the content type and supports various HTTP methods.

Installation

npm install @popovmp/client-request

Features

• Support for GET, POST, PUT, HEAD requests
• Automatic content type detection and parsing
• Automatic decompression (gzip, deflate, brotli, zstd)
• JSON and form data support
• Configurable timeouts
• TypeScript support
• No external dependencies (except for request parsing)

API Reference

All functions accept optional headers as the last parameter. If no headers are provided, an empty object {} is used.

HEAD request

async function requestHead(url, headers?)

import { requestHead } from '@popovmp/client-request';

const url = "https://httpbin.org/get";
const headers = {"Accept": "application/json"}; // optional

const res = await requestHead(url, headers);
console.log(res.statusCode); // 200

GET request

async function requestGet(url, headers?)

import { requestGet } from '@popovmp/client-request';

const url     = "https://httpbin.org/get?foo=bar";
const headers = {"Accept": "application/json"}; // optional

const res = await requestGet(url, headers);
console.log(res.response.args); // { foo: 'bar' }

POST request

async function requestPost(url, data, headers?)

import { requestPost } from '@popovmp/client-request';

const url     = "https://httpbin.org/post?foo=bar";
const body    = "Hello, World!";
const headers = {"Content-Type": "text/plain"}; // optional

const res  = await requestPost(url, body, headers);
console.log(res.response);

PUT Request

async function requestPut(url, data, headers?)

Same as POST request but uses PUT method.

import { requestPut } from '@popovmp/client-request';

const url  = "https://httpbin.org/put";
const data = {message: "Hello, World!"};

const res = await requestPut(url, data);
console.log(res.response);

POST JSON request

async function requestJson(url, data, headers?)

import { requestJson } from '@popovmp/client-request';

const url     = "https://httpbin.org/post?foo=bar";
const json    = {number: 42, text: "foo", list: [1, 2], object: {bar: "baz"}};
const headers = {User-Agent: "Request-Service"}; // optional

const res  = await requestJson(url, json, headers);
console.log(res.response.json); // parsed JSON response

POST form URL encoded request

async function requestForm(url, formData, headers?)

import { requestForm } from '@popovmp/client-request';

const url     = "https://httpbin.org/post?foo=bar";
const form    = {number: 42, text: "foo", list: [1, 2]};
const headers = {User-Agent: "Request-Service"}; // optional

const res  = await requestForm(url, form, headers);
console.log(res.response.form); // parsed form data

Response Format

All functions return a ClientRequestResponse object with the following properties:

{
  response     : any,    // Parsed response body (depends on content-type)
  headers      : object, // Response headers
  host         : string, // Request host
  method       : string, // HTTP method used
  path         : string, // Request path
  protocol     : string, // Protocol used (http: or https:)
  statusCode   : number, // HTTP status code
  statusMessage: string, // HTTP status message
}

Timeout Configuration

By default, requests timeout after 30 seconds. You can customize this by adding a Request-Timeout header with the timeout in seconds:

const headers = {
  "Request-Timeout": "10" // 10 seconds timeout
};

const res = await requestGet(url, headers);

Compression Support

The library automatically handles compressed responses from servers:

• gzip - Most common compression
• deflate - Standard compression
• brotli - Modern compression (br)
• zstd - New fast compression

Simply include the appropriate Accept-Encoding header:

const headers = {
  "Accept-Encoding": "gzip, deflate, br, zstd"
};

const res = await requestGet(url, headers);
// Response is automatically decompressed

If no Accept-Encoding header is provided, responses are processed as-is.

Error Handling

The library throws errors for:

• Network connectivity issues
• Request timeouts
• Invalid URLs
• Server errors
• Decompression failures

try {
  const res = await requestGet("https://invalid-url");
} catch (error) {
  console.error("Request failed:", error.message);
}