Deprecated since 2.8.0

This guide should be considered as obsolete and features presented here could be deprecated.

Controllers #

Kuzzle's API is divided into controllers, each exposing executable actions (see API reference).

Plugins can extend Kuzzle's API by adding new controllers to it.

Security access to plugin controllers must be given (or denied), using the exact same way as with native API controllers.

Querying plugins controllers #

To avoid naming conflicts, Kuzzle prefixes plugin controllers names with the plugin name.

HTTP #

URL: http://<server>:<port>/_plugin/<plugin name>/<path defined by the plugin>/<resources>
Method: <verb defined by the plugin>

Other protocols #

{
  "controller": "<plugin name>/<added controller name>",
  "action": "<action of the added controller>",
  ...
}

Creating a Controller Route #

In order to create a new controller, the plugin must expose the following properties:

A controllers object, describing the controller(s) to add. It will automatically be made available to any network protocol, except for HTTP
A routes objects, describing how the controller(s) should be exposed to the HTTP protocol
The controller's actions, which are functions taking a KuzzleRequest object as an argument. These functions must return a promise, resolved with the action's result, or rejected with a KuzzleError object.

Return a response #

By default, Kuzzle wraps a controller action's result in a Kuzzle Response object.

Consider the following action:

async init (config, context) {
  this.controllers = {
    myController: {
      saySomething: 'saySomething'
    }
  }
};

async saySomething (request) {
  return {
    foo: 'bar'
  };
}

When this action is successfully called, the following answer will be returned by Kuzzle:

{
  "requestId": "32dfbe90-34e1-43c0-a857-25b715b28a1b",
  "status": 200,
  "error": null,
  "controller": "myPlugin/myController",
  "action": "saySomething",
  "volatile": null,
  "result":
  {
    "foo": "bar"
  }
}

However, it is possible to tell Kuzzle not to wrap the returned value in a Kuzzle Response and send it as it is.
To do this, the raw property of the response object must be set to true.

For example, to return an arbitrary JSON:

async saySomething (request) {
  const json = JSON.stringify({ foo: 'bar' });

  request.response.raw = true;
  request.response.headers['Content-Type'] = 'application/json';

  return json;
}

When this action is successfully called, the following answer will be returned by Kuzzle:

{
  "foo": "bar"
}

Query normalization #

Kuzzle normalizes request payloads into KuzzleRequest objects.

Quick summary of how queries are normalized:

HTTP:
- dynamic arguments provided in the URL, and query string arguments are stored in request.input.args
- the body content is made available in request.input.body
- request headers can be found in request.context.connection.misc.headers
Other protocols:
- the body property is stored in request.input.body
- any other properties at the root of the query object will be stored in request.input.args

Automatic Events Generation #

Kuzzle triggers events on all controller routes, including those added by plugins.

Read more about these automatic controller events here.

Example #

module.exports = class ControllerPlugin {
  constructor() {
    /*
      Adds a new "newController" controller to Kuzzle's API.

      That new controller exposes 2 actions: myAction, and myOtherAction

      These actions point to functions exposed to Kuzzle by the plugin.

      Network protocols (other than HTTP) will be able to invoke this new
      controller with the following JSON object:

      {
        controller: '<plugin name>/newController',
        action: 'myAction',
        ...
      }
     */
    this.controllers = {
      newController: {
        myAction: 'actionFunction',
        myOtherAction: 'otherActionFunction'
      }
    };

    /*
      To expose the new controller, it must be registered to Kuzzle's HTTP router.

      To do so, a "routes" property must be exposed by the plugin, as an array
      of objects. Each object is an API action, with the following properties:

      - verb: HTTP verb
      - path (or "url"): HTTP path. Any parameter starting with a ':'
        will be made dynamic by Kuzzle (its value is stored in request.input.args)
      - controller: plugin controller name, as exposed in the "this.controllers" object
      - action: controller action to execute

      The first route exposes the following GET URL:
        http://<kuzzle server>:<port>/_plugin/<plugin name>/foo/<dynamic value>

      Kuzzle will call the function 'actionFunction' with a KuzzleRequest object,
      containing the "name" property: request.input.args.name = '<dynamic value>'

      The second route exposes the following POST URL:
        http://<kuzzle server>:<port>/_plugin/<plugin name>/bar

      Kuzzle will provide the content body of the request in the KuzzleRequest object
      passed to the function 'otherActionFunction', in the request.input.body
      property
     */
    this.routes = [
      {
        verb: 'get',
        path: '/foo/:name',
        controller: 'newController',
        action: 'myAction'
      },
      {
        verb: 'post',
        path: '/bar',
        controller: 'newController',
        action: 'myOtherAction'
      }
    ];
  }

  /*
    Required plugin initialization function
    (see the "Plugin prerequisites" section)
   */
  init(customConfig, context) {
    // plugin initialization
  }

  /*
    Implements the action newController/myAction
    Takes a KuzzleRequest object as an argument, and MUST return
    a promise resolved (or rejected) with the action's result
    This result can be of any JS type (scalar, object, array), and
    will be used to build a response to send to the requesting client
   */
  actionFunction(request) {
    // do action

    // optional: set network specific headers
    if (request.context.protocol === 'http') {
      // expires in 1h
      request.response.setHeader(
        'expires',
        new Date(Date.now() + 3600000).toUTCString()
      );
    }

    // Resolve with the result content. For instance:
    return Promise.resolve({ acknowledge: true });
  }

  /*
    Implements the action newController/myOtherAction
    Takes a KuzzleRequest object as an argument, and MUST return
    a promise resolved (or rejected) with the action's result
    This result can be of any JS type (scalar, object, array), and
    will be used to build a response to send to the requesting client
   */
  otherActionFunction(request) {
    // do action
    return Promise.resolve(/* result content *);
  }
};

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