v0.7.0 - Connect for Node.js Preview

[timostamm]

This is the first release of Connect for Node.js - clients and servers for Node.js, with support for the gRPC, gRPC-web and Connect's own protocol: @bufbuild/connect-node

Connect-Node is still in preview, so we want your feedback! We’d love to learn about your use cases and what you’d like to do with Connect-Node. For example, do you plan to use it with React, Remix, or on the edge with Vercel’s Edge Runtime? You can reach us either through the Buf Slack or by filing a GitHub issue and we’d be more than happy to chat!

This release does not make any changes to @bufbuild/connect-web or the code generator protoc-gen-connect-web.

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This discussion was created from the release v0.7.0.

[fubhy]

Awesome work everyone. Congrats!

[ghost]

I really like the fact that you can declare the implementation method by method rather than service by service. Thanks a lot for this work! 🙏

[bobaaaaa]

@timostamm do need both, the server and the client, the same connect-web generated stuff? Or is it possible that the server runs a grpc java server (protoc generated) and the client uses connect-web?

[timostamm]

@bobaaaaa, @bufbuild/connect-web implements two protocols: gRPC-web, and Connect. It does not implement the gRPC protocol used by your Java gRPC server, because browsers do not expose HTTP trailers.

Until Java adds an in-memory proxy for the gRCP-web or Connect protocol, you can run Envoy as a proxy for your Java backend with the gRPC-Web filter enabled (here's an example configuration). Your Java gRPC server can remain unchanged. You won't get all the benefits of the Connect protocol, but you'll still be able to use @bufbuild/connect-web in the browser.

When envoyproxy/envoy#24836 is released, upgrade your Envoy proxy to the new version. With the same configuration, it will be able to translate from the Connect RPC protocol to standard gRPC (just as it does for gRPC-Web today). At that point, you can switch your frontend to use the Connect RPC protocol. None of your application code will need to change, and you'll get all the debugging and ease-of-use benefits of the new protocol.