Start Using the Node.js SDK

tutorial

The Couchbase Node.js SDK enables you to interact with a Couchbase Server or Capella cluster from the Node.js runtime, using TypeScript or JavaScript.

The Couchbase SDK API 3 (implemented by Node.js SDK 3.x and 4.x) is a complete rewrite of the API, reducing the number of overloads to present a simplified surface area, and adding support for Couchbase Server features like Collections and Scopes (available from Couchbase Server 7.0).

Node.js SDK 4.x implements the same SDK API 3 bindings, but the internals are completely rewritten — using the Couchbase++ library rather than libcouchbase — to allow upcoming new features such as transactions, and fix some long-standing bugs. Please note any caveats in the migration guide.

In this guide, you will learn:

How to connect to Couchbase Capella or Couchbase Server.
How to add and retrieve Documents.
How to lookup documents with the SQL++ (formerly N1QL) query language.

Hello Couchbase

We will go through the code sample step by step, but for those in a hurry to see it, here it is:

Couchbase Capella (JavaScript)
Couchbase Capella (TypeScript)
Local Couchbase Server

To connect to Couchbase Capella, be sure to get the correct endpoint as well as user, password and bucket name.

var couchbase = require('couchbase')

async function main() {
  const clusterConnStr = 'couchbases://cb.<your-endpoint>.cloud.couchbase.com'
  const username = 'username'
  const password = 'Password!123'
  const bucketName = 'travel-sample'

  const cluster = await couchbase.connect(clusterConnStr, {
    username: username,
    password: password,
    // Sets a pre-configured profile called "wanDevelopment" to help avoid latency issues
    // when accessing Capella from a different Wide Area Network
    // or Availability Zone (e.g. your laptop).
    configProfile: 'wanDevelopment',
  })

  const bucket = cluster.bucket(bucketName)

  // Get a reference to the default collection, required only for older Couchbase server versions
  const defaultCollection = bucket.defaultCollection()

  const collection = bucket.scope('tenant_agent_00').collection('users')

  const user = {
    type: 'user',
    name: 'Michael',
    email: 'michael123@test.com',
    interests: ['Swimming', 'Rowing'],
  }

  // Create and store a document
  await collection.upsert('michael123', user)

  // Load the Document and print it
  // Prints Content and Metadata of the stored Document
  let getResult = await collection.get('michael123')
  console.log('Get Result: ', getResult)

  // Perform a SQL++ (N1QL) Query
  const queryResult = await bucket
    .scope('inventory')
    .query('SELECT name FROM `airline` WHERE country=$1 LIMIT 10', {
      parameters: ['United States'],
    })
  console.log('Query Results:')
  queryResult.rows.forEach((row) => {
    console.log(row)
  })
}

// Run the main function
main()
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log('ERR:', err)
    process.exit(1)
  })
  .then(process.exit)

To connect to Couchbase Capella, be sure to get the correct endpoint as well as user, password and bucket name.

'use strict'

import {
  Bucket,
  Cluster,
  Collection,
  connect,
  ConnectOptions,
  GetResult,
  QueryResult,
} from 'couchbase'

async function main() {
  const clusterConnStr: string =
    'couchbases://cb.<your-endpoint>.cloud.couchbase.com'
  const username: string = 'username'
  const password: string = 'Password!123'
  const bucketName: string = 'travel-sample'

  const connectOptions: ConnectOptions = {
    username: username,
    password: password,
    // Sets a pre-configured profile called "wanDevelopment" to help avoid latency issues
    // when accessing Capella from a different Wide Area Network
    // or Availability Zone (e.g. your laptop).
    configProfile: 'wanDevelopment'
  }

  const cluster: Cluster = await connect(clusterConnStr, connectOptions)

  const bucket: Bucket = cluster.bucket(bucketName)

  const collection: Collection = bucket
    .scope('tenant_agent_00')
    .collection('users')

  // Get a reference to the default collection, required only for older Couchbase server versions
  const collection_default: Collection = bucket.defaultCollection()

  interface User {
    type: string
    name: string
    email: string
    interests: string[]
  }

  const user: User = {
    type: 'user',
    name: 'Michael',
    email: 'michael123@test.com',
    interests: ['Swimming', 'Rowing'],
  }

  await collection.upsert('michael123', user)

  // Load the Document and print it
  // Prints Content and Metadata of the stored document
  const getResult: GetResult = await collection.get('michael123')
  console.log('Get Result:', getResult)

  // Perform a N1QL Query
  const queryResult: QueryResult = await bucket
    .scope('inventory')
    .query('SELECT name FROM `airline` WHERE country=$1 LIMIT 10', {
      parameters: ['United States'],
    })
  console.log('Query Results:')
  queryResult.rows.forEach((row) => {
    console.log(row)
  })
}

// Run the main function
main()
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log('ERR:', err)
    process.exit(1)
  })
  .then(() => process.exit(0))

As well as the Node.js SDK, and a running instance of Couchbase Server, you will need to load up the Travel Sample Bucket using either the Web interface or the command line.

const couchbase = require('couchbase')

async function main() {
  // For a secure cluster connection, use `couchbases://<your-cluster-ip>` instead.
  const clusterConnStr = 'couchbase://localhost'
  const username = 'Administrator'
  const password = 'password'
  const bucketName = 'travel-sample'

  const cluster = await couchbase.connect(clusterConnStr, {
    username: username,
    password: password,
  })

  const bucket = cluster.bucket(bucketName)

  // Get a reference to the default collection, required only for older Couchbase server versions
  const defaultCollection = bucket.defaultCollection()

  const collection = bucket.scope('tenant_agent_00').collection('users')

  const user = {
    type: 'user',
    name: 'Michael',
    email: 'michael123@test.com',
    interests: ['Swimming', 'Rowing'],
  }

  // Create and store a document
  await collection.upsert('michael123', user)

  // Load the Document and print it
  // Prints Content and Metadata of the stored Document
  let getResult = await collection.get('michael123')
  console.log('Get Result: ', getResult)

  // Perform a N1QL Query
  const queryResult = await bucket
    .scope('inventory')
    .query('SELECT name FROM `airline` WHERE country=$1 LIMIT 10', {
      parameters: ['United States'],
    })
  console.log('Query Results:')
  queryResult.rows.forEach((row) => {
    console.log(row)
  })
}

// Run the main function
main()
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log('ERR:', err)
    process.exit(1)
  })
  .then(process.exit)

The Couchbase Capella free tier version comes with the Travel Sample Bucket, and its Query indexes, loaded and ready.

Quick Installation

$ npm install couchbase --save

This will download the latest Couchbase Node.js SDK, and add a dependency to your package.json.

Information on new features, fixes, known issues, as well as information on how to install older release versions is in the release notes, and a fuller installation guide can be found here.

TypeScript Support

If you intend to use TypeScript instead of JavaScript, then also do the following:

$ npm install -g typescript ts-node

Prerequisites

The following code samples assume:

Couchbase Capella
Local Couchbase Server

You have signed up to Couchbase Capella.
You have created your own bucket, or loaded the Travel Sample dataset. Note, the Travel Sample dataset is installed automatically when deploying a Capella free tier cluster..
A user is created with permissions to access the cluster (at least Application Access permissions). See the Capella connection page for more details.

Couchbase Capella uses Roles to control user access to database resources. For the purposes of this guide, you can use the Organization Owner role automatically assigned to your account during installation of the Capella cluster. In a production scenario, we strongly recommend setting up users with more granular access roles as a best practice.

Couchbase Server is installed and accessible locally.
You have created your own bucket, or loaded the Travel Sample dataset using the Web interface.
A user is created with permissions to access your cluster (at least Application Access permissions). See Manage Users, Groups and Roles for more details.

Couchbase Server uses Role Based Access Control (RBAC) to control access to resources. In this guide we suggest using the Full Admin role created during setup of your local Couchbase Server cluster. For production client code, you will want to use more appropriate, restrictive settings.

Step by Step

Create an empty file named index.js, or alternatively index.ts for TypeScript, and walk through step by step.

Here are all the imports that you will need to run the sample code.

JavaScript
TypeScript

var couchbase = require('couchbase')

import {
  Bucket,
  Cluster,
  Collection,
  connect,
  ConnectOptions,
  GetResult,
  QueryResult,
} from 'couchbase'

Now, create an empty main() function.

async function main() {
  // add code here...
}

We will update this function as we go along the steps in this guide.

Connect

Connect to your cluster by calling the connect() function and pass it your connection details. The basic connection details that you’ll need are given below — for more background information, see Managing Connections.

Couchbase Capella (JavaScript)
Couchbase Capella (TypeScript)
Local Couchbase Server

From version 4.1, the Node.js SDK includes Capella’s standard certificates by default, so you don’t need any additional configuration. You do need to enable TLS, which can be done by simply using couchbases:// in the connection string as in this example.

const clusterConnStr = 'couchbases://cb.<your-endpoint>.cloud.couchbase.com'
const username = 'username'
const password = 'Password!123'
const bucketName = 'travel-sample'

const cluster = await couchbase.connect(clusterConnStr, {
  username: username,
  password: password,
  // Sets a pre-configured profile called "wanDevelopment" to help avoid latency issues
  // when accessing Capella from a different Wide Area Network
  // or Availability Zone (e.g. your laptop).
  configProfile: 'wanDevelopment',
})

When accessing Capella from a different Wide Area Network or Availability Zone, you may experience latency issues with the default connection settings. SDK 4.2 introduces a wanDevelopment Configuration Profile, which provides pre-configured timeout settings suitable for working in high latency environments. Basic usage is shown in the example above, but if you want to learn more see Constrained Network Environments.

The Configuration Profiles feature is currently a Volatile API and may be subject to change.

  const clusterConnStr: string =
    'couchbases://cb.<your-endpoint>.cloud.couchbase.com'
  const username: string = 'username'
  const password: string = 'Password!123'
  const bucketName: string = 'travel-sample'

  const connectOptions: ConnectOptions = {
    username: username,
    password: password,
    // Sets a pre-configured profile called "wanDevelopment" to help avoid latency issues
    // when accessing Capella from a different Wide Area Network
    // or Availability Zone (e.g. your laptop).
    configProfile: 'wanDevelopment'
  }

  const cluster: Cluster = await connect(clusterConnStr, connectOptions)

The Configuration Profiles feature is currently a Volatile API and may be subject to change.

// For a secure cluster connection, use `couchbases://<your-cluster-ip>` instead.
const clusterConnStr = 'couchbase://localhost'
const username = 'Administrator'
const password = 'password'
const bucketName = 'travel-sample'

const cluster = await couchbase.connect(clusterConnStr, {
  username: username,
  password: password,
})

For developing locally on the same machine as Couchbase Server, your URI can be couchbase://localhost as shown here. For production deployments, you will want to use a secure server, with couchbases://.

Following successful authentication, add this code snippet to access your Bucket:

JavaScript
TypeScript

const bucket = cluster.bucket(bucketName)

const bucket: Bucket = cluster.bucket(bucketName)

Add and Retrieve Documents

The Node.js SDK supports full integration with the Collections feature introduced in Couchbase Server 7.0. Collections allow documents to be grouped by purpose or theme, according to a specified Scope.

Here we refer to the users collection within the tenant_agent_00 scope from the Travel Sample bucket as an example, but you may replace this with your own data.

JavaScript
TypeScript

const collection = bucket.scope('tenant_agent_00').collection('users')

const collection: Collection = bucket
  .scope('tenant_agent_00')
  .collection('users')

The code shows how you would use a named collection and scope. A named or default collection will provide the same functionality as bucket-level operations did in previous versions of Couchbase Server.

The defaultCollection must be used when connecting to a 6.6 cluster or earlier.

JavaScript
TypeScript

// Get a reference to the default collection, required only for older Couchbase server versions
const defaultCollection = bucket.defaultCollection()

// Get a reference to the default collection, required only for older Couchbase server versions
const collection_default: Collection = bucket.defaultCollection()

Document operations, such as storing and retrieving documents, can be done using Collection.upsert() and Collection.get().

Add the following code to create a new document and retrieve it:

JavaScript
TypeScript

const user = {
  type: 'user',
  name: 'Michael',
  email: 'michael123@test.com',
  interests: ['Swimming', 'Rowing'],
}

// Create and store a document
await collection.upsert('michael123', user)

// Load the Document and print it
// Prints Content and Metadata of the stored Document
let getResult = await collection.get('michael123')
console.log('Get Result: ', getResult)

interface User {
  type: string
  name: string
  email: string
  interests: string[]
}

const user: User = {
  type: 'user',
  name: 'Michael',
  email: 'michael123@test.com',
  interests: ['Swimming', 'Rowing'],
}

await collection.upsert('michael123', user)

// Load the Document and print it
// Prints Content and Metadata of the stored document
const getResult: GetResult = await collection.get('michael123')
console.log('Get Result:', getResult)

SQL++ Lookup

Couchbase SQL++ queries can be performed at the Cluster or Scope level by invoking Cluster.query() or Scope.query().

Cluster level queries require you to specify the fully qualified keyspace each time (e.g. travel-sample.inventory.airline). However, with a Scope level query you only need to specify the Collection name — which in this case is airline:

JavaScript
TypeScript

// Perform a SQL++ (N1QL) Query
const queryResult = await bucket
  .scope('inventory')
  .query('SELECT name FROM `airline` WHERE country=$1 LIMIT 10', {
    parameters: ['United States'],
  })
console.log('Query Results:')
queryResult.rows.forEach((row) => {
  console.log(row)
})

// Perform a N1QL Query
const queryResult: QueryResult = await bucket
  .scope('inventory')
  .query('SELECT name FROM `airline` WHERE country=$1 LIMIT 10', {
    parameters: ['United States'],
  })
console.log('Query Results:')
queryResult.rows.forEach((row) => {
  console.log(row)
})

Execute!

To ensure that we can run the main function, we add this last line of code:

JavaScript
TypeScript

// Run the main function
main()
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log('ERR:', err)
    process.exit(1)
  })
  .then(process.exit)

// Run the main function
main()
  .catch((err) => {
    console.log('ERR:', err)
    process.exit(1)
  })
  .then(() => process.exit(0))

Now we can run our code:

JavaScript
TypeScript

$ node index.js

$ ts-node index.ts

The results you should expect are as follows:

Get Result: GetResult {
  content: {
    type: 'user',
    name: 'Michael',
    email: 'michael123@test.com',
    interests: [ 'Swimming', 'Rowing' ]
  },
  cas: Cas<1665739583483674624>,
  expiryTime: undefined
}
Query Results:
{ name: '40-Mile Air' }
{ name: 'Texas Wings' }
{ name: 'Atifly' }
{ name: 'Locair' }
{ name: 'SeaPort Airlines' }
{ name: 'Alaska Central Express' }
{ name: 'AirTran Airways' }
{ name: 'U.S. Air' }
{ name: 'PanAm World Airways' }
{ name: 'Bemidji Airlines' }

Next Steps

Now you’re up and running, try one of the following:

Our Travel Sample Application demonstrates all the basics you need to know;
Explore Key Value Operations against a document database;
Or Query with our SQL++ language;
Or read up on which service fits your use case.

Additional Resources

The API reference is generated for each release and the latest can be found here.

Links to each release are to be found in the individual release notes.

The Migrating from SDK API 2 to 3 page highlights the main differences to be aware of when migrating your code.

Couchbase welcomes community contributions to the Node.js SDK. The Node.js SDK source code is available on GitHub.

Troubleshooting

Couchbase Server is designed to work in the same WAN or availability zone as the client application. If you’re running the SDK on your laptop against a Capella cluster, see further information on:
- Notes on Constrained Network Environments.
- Network Requirements.
- If you have a consumer-grade router which has problems with DNS-SRV records review our Troubleshooting Guide.
Our community forum is a great source of help.