fetchSync

Synchronous HTTP requests with the native fetch() API interface. Zero dependencies. Node.js 18+.

Uses execSync to spawn a child process that runs native fetch, then returns the result synchronously.

Installation

npm install node-sync-fetch

Usage

const fetchSync = require("node-sync-fetch");
// or
const { fetchSync } = require("node-sync-fetch");

GET

const res = fetchSync("https://api.example.com/users");

console.log(res.status); // 200
console.log(res.ok); // true
console.log(res.json()); // parsed JSON body
console.log(res.text()); // raw string body

POST with JSON

const res = fetchSync("https://api.example.com/users", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json" },
  body: JSON.stringify({ name: "Alice" }),
});

console.log(res.status); // 201

Headers

const res = fetchSync("https://api.example.com/data", {
  headers: { Authorization: "Bearer token123" },
});

console.log(res.headers.get("content-type"));

Timeout

const res = fetchSync("https://api.example.com/slow", {
  timeout: 5000, // ms — aborts if exceeded
});

Response object

| Property / Method | Description | | --------------------- | ------------------------------------ | | status | HTTP status code | | statusText | HTTP status text | | ok | true if status is 200–299 | | url | Final URL after redirects | | redirected | true if the request was redirected | | headers.get(name) | Get a response header value | | headers.has(name) | Check if a header exists | | headers.forEach(cb) | Iterate headers | | text() | Return body as a UTF-8 string | | json() | Parse and return body as JSON | | arrayBuffer() | Return body as an ArrayBuffer | | bytes() | Return body as a Uint8Array |

All response methods are synchronous. The body is pre-buffered, so they can be called multiple times.

Options

All standard fetch() options are supported (method, headers, body, redirect, credentials, cache, mode, etc.) plus these extensions:

| Option | Type | Default | Description | | ----------- | -------- | ---------- | ---------------------------------- | | timeout | number | — | Abort after N milliseconds | | maxBuffer | number | 67108864 | Max response size in bytes (64 MB) |

Body types

The body option accepts: string, URLSearchParams, Buffer, ArrayBuffer, and typed arrays. FormData and ReadableStream are not supported.

Errors

Throws on network failures (connection refused, DNS failure, timeout). Non-2xx responses are returned normally — check res.ok or res.status.

try {
  const res = fetchSync("https://api.example.com/data");
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`HTTP ${res.status}`);
  return res.json();
} catch (err) {
  console.error(err.message);
}

Limitations

• signal (AbortSignal) is not supported — use the timeout option instead
• credentials: 'include' has no effect (no browser cookie jar in the child process)
• Response streaming is not available — the full body is buffered in memory
• blob() is not implemented

License

MIT