Variables can be used to store intermediate results during flow execution.
A valid variable name starts with $
followed by a letter a
…z
or A
…Z
or an underscore _
. More letters, underscores, the numbers 0
…9
or hyphens -
may follow.
The following predefined variables exist:
$body
: client request body$env
: environment variables$request
: client request information$server
: server information$upstream
: upstream response information$error
: Contains information regarding the most recent error, but is initially empty.
Try the following flow with
$ curl --data hello localhost:8080 | jq
<flow>
<template>
{
"$request": {
{{with $request }}{{: * }}{{end}}
},
"$body": {{ $body }},
"$upstream": {{ $upstream }},
"$server": {
{{: $server/* }}
},
"$env": {
{{: $env/* }}
}
}
</template>
</flow>
The actions request
and requests
set the $upstream
variable, too:
<flow>
<requests>
{
"ok": {
"url": "https://httpbin.org/status/200"
},
"failure": {
"url": "https://httpbin.org/status/500"
}
}
</requests>
<template>
{
"$upstream": {
{{with $upstream }}{{: * }}{{end}}
}
}
</template>
</flow>
{
"$upstream": {
"ok": {
"url": "https://httpbin.org/status/200",
"status": 200,
"headers": { … }
},
"failure": {
…
}
}
}
Global variables are usually defined as the output of eval
actions.
The variable name is defined in the out="…"
attribute. It must
begin with $
followed by a letter and then more letters or numbers.
<flow>
<!-- $x = 1 -->
<eval out="$x">1</eval>
<!-- $x = $x + 5 -->
<eval in="$x" out="$x">{{ . + 5 }}</eval>
<!-- $answer = $x * 7 -->
<eval out="$answer">{{ $x * 7 }}</eval>
</flow>
For structured JSON variables, you can use the template
action:
<flow>
<template out="$cfg">
{
"stage": "prod",
"mock": {{ boolean($request/get/mock) }},
"answer": {{ $answer }}
}
</template>
</flow>
Variables may be copied with eval, too:
<flow>
<eval out="$client_request">$request</eval>
…
</flow>
Templates may define local variables with {{$… := …}}
. Those variables are
undefined outside the template they're defined in:
<flow>
<template>{{$answer:= 42 }}</template>
<!-- null -->
<template>{{ $answer }}</template>
</flow>
📎 If a variable containing binary content is processed in a
template
orxslt
action, its content will probably end up being truncated, garbled or both.
Attempting to access a variable that has not been set previously will yield
an empty node-set. The empty node-set will be evaluated to false
in
conditions and produces the string null
in placeholders:
<flow>
<template>
{{if $undefined }}
will never be reached
{{else}}
<!-- null -->
{{ $undefined }}
{{end}}
</template>
</flow>
The $request
variable contains information about the incoming client request, such as the URL, the request header fields and possibly the query component or cookies, if any were sent.
Example:
<request>
<method>POST</method>
<purpose>main</purpose>
<debug/>
<host>localhost</host>
<port>12345</port>
<id>XeeSVJ5AFt8VyXYagp3lvgAAACc</id>
<url>http://localhost:12345/api/proxy?a=b&c=d</url>
<path>/api/proxy</path>
<query>a=b&c=d</query>
<headers>
<host>localhost:12345</host>
<user-agent>curl/7.64.0</user-agent>
<accept>*/*</accept>
<cookie>NAME1=VALUE1; NAME2=VALUE2</cookie>
<content-type>application/x-www-form-urlencoded</content-type>
<foo>asdf</foo>
<bar>qwer</bar>
<content-length>17</content-length>
</headers>
<get>
<a>b</a>
<c>d</c>
</get>
<cookies>
<NAME1>VALUE1</NAME1>
<NAME2>VALUE2</NAME2>
</cookies>
</request>
As HTTP request headers are defined to be case-insensitive, their names are lower-cased for convenient access even if the client has sent the field name with upper-case letters, e.g.:
$request/headers/user-agent
Both client request and response, as well as upstream request and response validation errors will store information about the error in $error
. While initially empty, $error
will have the following properties containing information about the most recent error:
status
- the HTTP status that is used by default for responses if the error was passed to the client (type:number
)code
- an error code (type:number
)message
- a single line of text describing the error (type:string
)info
- detailed information about the error (type:array
ofstring
)requestID
- the requestID as it should appear in the logs (type:string
)
Example:
{
"status": 400,
"code": 3204,
"message": "Input Validation Failed",
"info": [
"Path /api/empty-body/ not found."
],
"requestID": "XYOGvOu@c2mhpIlgFB-yPwAAAF8"
}
- Using Env Vars (cookbook)