A Socket API that works across JavaScript runtimes — announcing a WinterCG spec and Node.js implementation of connect()

Earlier this year, we announced a new API for creating outbound TCP sockets — connect(). From day one, we’ve been working with the Web-interoperable Runtimes Community Group (WinterCG) community to chart a course toward making this API a standard, available across all runtimes and platforms — including Node.js.

Today, we’re sharing that we’ve reached a new milestone in the path to making this API available across runtimes — engineers from Cloudflare and Vercel have published a draft specification of the connect() sockets API for review by the community, along with a Node.js compatible implementation of the connect() API that developers can start using today.

This implementation helps both application developers and maintainers of libraries and frameworks:

1. Maintainers of existing libraries that use the node:net and node:tls APIs can use it to more easily add support for runtimes where node:net and node:tls are not available.
2. JavaScript frameworks can use it to make connect() available in local development, making it easier for application developers to target runtimes that provide connect().

Why create a new standard? Why connect()?

As we described when we first announced connect(), to-date there has not been a standard API across JavaScript runtimes for creating and Continue reading