Web APIs reference - API Realtime - Docs

The Realtime API is implemented via Server-Sent Events (SSE). Generally, it consists of 2 operations:

establish SSE connection
submit client subscriptions

SSE events are sent for create, update and delete record operations.

You could subscribe to a single record or to an entire collection.

When you subscribe to a single record, the collection's ViewRule will be used to determine whether the subscriber has access to receive the event message.

When you subscribe to an entire collection, the collection's ListRule will be used to determine whether the subscriber has access to receive the event message.

POST

/api/realtime

Sets new active client's subscriptions (and auto unsubscribes from the previous ones).

If Authorization header is set, will authorize the client SSE connection with the associated user or admin.

Body Parameters

Param Type Description

Param	Type	Description
Required clientId	String	ID of the SSE client connection.
Optional subscriptions	Array<String>	The new client subscriptions to set in the format: `COLLECTION_ID_OR_NAME` or `COLLECTION_ID_OR_NAME/RECORD_ID`. You can also attach optional query and header parameters as serialized json to a single topic using the `options` query parameter, eg.: `COLLECTION_ID_OR_NAME/RECORD_ID?options={"query": {"abc": "123"}, "headers": {"x-token": "..."}}` Leave empty to unsubscribe from everything.

Required clientId

String

ID of the SSE client connection.

Optional subscriptions

Array<String>

The new client subscriptions to set in the format:
COLLECTION_ID_OR_NAME or COLLECTION_ID_OR_NAME/RECORD_ID.

You can also attach optional query and header parameters as serialized json to a single topic using the options query parameter, eg.:

COLLECTION_ID_OR_NAME/RECORD_ID?options={"query": {"abc": "123"}, "headers": {"x-token": "..."}}

Leave empty to unsubscribe from everything.

Body parameters could be sent as JSON or multipart/form-data.

Responses

null

{
  "code": 400,
  "message": "Something went wrong while processing your request.",
  "data": {
    "clientId": {
      "code": "validation_required",
      "message": "Missing required value."
    }
  }
}

{
  "code": 403,
  "message": "The current and the previous request authorization don't match.",
  "data": {}
}

{
  "code": 404,
  "message": "Missing or invalid client id.",
  "data": {}
}

All of this is seamlessly handled by the SDKs using just the subscribe and unsubscribe methods:

import PocketBase from 'pocketbase';

const pb = new PocketBase('http://127.0.0.1:8090');

...

// (Optionally) authenticate
await pb.collection('users').authWithPassword('test@example.com', '1234567890');

// Subscribe to changes in any record in the collection
pb.collection('example').subscribe('*', function (e) {
    console.log(e.action);
    console.log(e.record);
}, { /* other options like expand, custom headers, etc. */ });


// Subscribe to changes only in the specified record
pb.collection('example').subscribe('RECORD_ID', function (e) {
    console.log(e.action);
    console.log(e.record);
}, { /* other options like expand, custom headers, etc. */ });


// Unsubscribe
pb.collection('example').unsubscribe('RECORD_ID'); // remove all 'RECORD_ID' subscriptions
pb.collection('example').unsubscribe('*'); // remove all '*' topic subscriptions
pb.collection('example').unsubscribe(); // remove all subscriptions in the collection

import 'package:pocketbase/pocketbase.dart';

final pb = PocketBase('http://127.0.0.1:8090');

...

// (Optionally) authenticate
await pb.collection('users').authWithPassword('test@example.com', '1234567890');

// Subscribe to changes in any record in the collection
pb.collection('example').subscribe('*', (e) {
    print(e.action);
    print(e.record);
}, /* other options like expand, custom headers, etc. */);


// Subscribe to changes only in the specified record
pb.collection('example').subscribe('RECORD_ID', (e) {
    print(e.action);
    print(e.record);
}, /* other options like expand, custom headers, etc. */);


// Unsubscribe
pb.collection('example').unsubscribe('RECORD_ID'); // remove all 'RECORD_ID' subscriptions
pb.collection('example').unsubscribe('*'); // remove all '*' topic subscriptions
pb.collection('example').unsubscribe(); // remove all subscriptions in the collection