Hooks
Hooks are registered with the fastify.addHook
method and allow you to listen to specific events in the application or request/response lifecycle. You have to register a hook before the event is triggered otherwise the event is lost.
Request/Response Hooks
By using the hooks you can interact directly inside the lifecycle of Fastify. There are seven different Hooks that you can use (in order of execution):
'onRequest'
'preParsing'
'preValidation'
'preHandler'
'preSerialization'
'onError'
'onSend'
'onResponse'
Example:
fastify.addHook('onRequest', (request, reply, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
fastify.addHook('preParsing', (request, reply, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
fastify.addHook('preValidation', (request, reply, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
fastify.addHook('preHandler', (request, reply, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
fastify.addHook('preSerialization', (request, reply, payload, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
fastify.addHook('onError', (request, reply, error, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
fastify.addHook('onSend', (request, reply, payload, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
fastify.addHook('onResponse', (request, reply, next) => {
// some code
next()
})
Or async/await
fastify.addHook('onRequest', async (request, reply) => {
// some code
await asyncMethod()
// error occurred
if (err) {
throw new Error('some errors occurred.')
}
return
})
fastify.addHook('preParsing', async (request, reply) => {
// some code
await asyncMethod()
// error occurred
if (err) {
throw new Error('some errors occurred.')
}
return
})
fastify.addHook('preValidation', async (request, reply) => {
// some code
await asyncMethod()
// error occurred
if (err) {
throw new Error('some errors occurred.')
}
return
})
fastify.addHook('preHandler', async (request, reply) => {
// some code
await asyncMethod()
// error occurred
if (err) {
throw new Error('some errors occurred.')
}
return
})
fastify.addHook('preSerialization', async (request, reply, payload) => {
// some code
await asyncMethod()
// error occurred
if (err) {
throw new Error('some errors occurred.')
}
return payload
})
fastify.addHook('onError', async (request, reply, error) => {
// useful for custom error logging
// you should not use this hook to update the error
})
fastify.addHook('onSend', async (request, reply, payload) => {
// some code
await asyncMethod()
// error occurred
if (err) {
throw new Error('some errors occurred.')
}
return
})
fastify.addHook('onResponse', async (request, reply) => {
// some code
await asyncMethod()
// error occurred
if (err) {
throw new Error('some errors occurred.')
}
return
})
Notice: the next
callback is not available when using async
/await
or returning a Promise
. If you do invoke a next
callback in this situation unexpected behavior may occur, e.g. duplicate invocation of handlers.
Notice: in the onRequest
and preValidation
hooks, request.body
will always be null
, because the body parsing happens before the preHandler
hook.
Request and Reply are the core Fastify objects.next
is the function to continue with the lifecycle.
It is pretty easy to understand where each hook is executed by looking at the lifecycle page.Hooks are affected by Fastify's encapsulation, and can thus be applied to selected routes. See the Scopes section for more information.
If you get an error during the execution of your hook, just pass it to next()
and Fastify will automatically close the request and send the appropriate error code to the user.
fastify.addHook('onRequest', (request, reply, next) => {
next(new Error('some error'))
})
If you want to pass a custom error code to the user, just use reply.code()
:
fastify.addHook('preHandler', (request, reply, next) => {
reply.code(400)
next(new Error('some error'))
})
The error will be handled by Reply
.
The onError Hook
This hook is useful if you need to do some custom error logging or add some specific header in case of error.It is not intended for changing the error, and calling reply.send
will throw an exception.This hook will be executed only after the customErrorHandler
has been executed, and only if the customErrorHandler
sends back an error to the user (Note that the default customErrorHandler
always send back the error to the user).Notice: unlike the other hooks, pass an error to the next
function is not supported.
fastify.addHook('onError', (request, reply, error, next) => {
// apm stands for Application Performance Monitoring
apm.sendError(error)
next()
})
// Or async
fastify.addHook('onError', async (request, reply, error) => {
// apm stands for Application Performance Monitoring
apm.sendError(error)
})
The preSerialization Hook
If you are using the preSerialization
hook, you can change (or replace) the payload before it is serialized. For example:
fastify.addHook('preSerialization', (request, reply, payload, next) => {
var err = null;
var newPayload = {wrapped: payload }
next(err, newPayload)
})
// Or async
fastify.addHook('preSerialization', async (request, reply, payload) => {
return {wrapped: payload }
})
Note: the hook is NOT called if the payload is a string
, a Buffer
, a stream
, or null
.
The onSend Hook
If you are using the onSend
hook, you can change the payload. For example:
fastify.addHook('onSend', (request, reply, payload, next) => {
var err = null;
var newPayload = payload.replace('some-text', 'some-new-text')
next(err, newPayload)
})
// Or async
fastify.addHook('onSend', async (request, reply, payload) => {
var newPayload = payload.replace('some-text', 'some-new-text')
return newPayload
})
You can also clear the payload to send a response with an empty body by replacing the payload with null
:
fastify.addHook('onSend', (request, reply, payload, next) => {
reply.code(304)
const newPayload = null
next(null, newPayload)
})
You can also send an empty body by replacing the payload with the empty string''
, but be aware that this will cause theContent-Length
header to be set to0
, whereas theContent-Length
header will not be set if the payload isnull
.
Note: If you change the payload, you may only change it to a string
, a Buffer
, a stream
, or null
.
The onResponse Hook
The onResponse
hook is executed when a response has been sent, so you will not be able to send more data to the client, however you can use this hook to send some data to an external service or elaborate some statistics.
Respond to a request from a hook
If needed, you can respond to a request before you reach the route handler. An example could be an authentication hook. If you are using onRequest
or preHandler
use reply.send
; if you are using a middleware, res.end
.
fastify.addHook('onRequest', (request, reply, next) => {
reply.send('early response')
})
// Works with async functions too
fastify.addHook('preHandler', async (request, reply) => {
reply.send({ hello: 'world' })
})
If you want to respond with a stream, you should avoid using an async
function for the hook. If you must use an async
function, your code will need to follow the pattern in test/hooks-async.js.
fastify.addHook('onRequest', (request, reply, next) => {
const stream = fs.createReadStream('some-file', 'utf8')
reply.send(stream)
})
Application Hooks
You are able to hook into the application-lifecycle as well. It's important to note that these hooks aren't fully encapsulated. The this
inside the hooks are encapsulated but the handlers can respond to an event outside the encapsulation boundaries.
'onClose'
'onRoute'
'onClose'Triggered whenfastify.close()
is invoked to stop the server. It is useful when plugins need a "shutdown" event, such as a connection to a database.The first argument is the Fastify instance, the second one thedone
callback.
fastify.addHook('onClose', (instance, done) => {
// some code
done()
})
'onRoute'Triggered when a new route is registered. Listeners are passed a routeOptions
object as the sole parameter. The interface is synchronous, and, as such, the listeners do not get passed a callback.
fastify.addHook('onRoute', (routeOptions) => {
// some code
routeOptions.method
routeOptions.schema
routeOptions.url
routeOptions.bodyLimit
routeOptions.logLevel
routeOptions.prefix
})
Scope
Except for Application Hooks, all hooks are encapsulated. This means that you can decide where your hooks should run by using register
as explained in the plugins guide. If you pass a function, that function is bound to the right Fastify context and from there you have full access to the Fastify API.
fastify.addHook('onRequest', function (request, reply, next) {
const self = this // Fastify context
next()
})
Note: using an arrow function will break the binding of this to the Fastify instance.
Route level hooks
You can declare one or more custom preValidation
and preHandler
hook(s) that will be unique for the route. If you do so, those hooks always be executed as last hook in their category.This can be useful if you need to run the authentication, and the preValidation
hooks is exactly what you need for doing that. Let's make an example:
fastify.addHook('preValidation', (request, reply, done) => {
// your code
done()
})
fastify.addHook('preHandler', (request, reply, done) => {
// your code
done()
})
fastify.route({
method: 'GET',
url: '/',
schema: { ... },
preValidation: function (request, reply, done) {
// this hook will always be executed after the shared `preValidation` hooks
done()
},
preHandler: function (request, reply, done) {
// this hook will always be executed after the shared `preHandler` hooks
done()
},
handler: function (request, reply) {
reply.send({ hello: 'world' })
}
})
Note: both options also accept an array of functions.