Unscripted docs
Features

WebSockets

By default each server call is a POST. Opt in, and a page's calls go over one WebSocket to Laravel Reverb instead: faster for chatty components, and needed to send data live.

Setting it up

php artisan install:broadcasting --reverb

// config/unscripted.php
return ['transport' => 'reverb'];   // default 'http'

Then run Reverb beside your app:

php artisan reverb:start

Components must go on the page with @unscripted(...), which tells the browser where the socket is: the reverb broadcasting connection's address, or socket_url in the config if the browser reaches Reverb somewhere else. Octane isn't needed: Reverb is its own long-running process.

POST /unscripted/call stays up either way.

What's different over the socket

  • Who's calling: a logged-in user's socket joins the private channel private-unscripted.<id>, signed by /broadcasting/auth with their session (the package registers the channel). Each call then runs as that user, so auth(), gates and can work as over HTTP. With no channel, calls are a guest's. Logging out doesn't close the socket: the user stays logged in on it until the page is closed.
  • No middleware per message. Nothing in the web group runs for a call: no session, no CSRF check (the channel's signature stands in), no throttling but Reverb's own rate limit. session() in a server method doesn't have the user's session.
  • One process for everyone. Methods run in the Reverb process, one message at a time. A slow method holds up every socket on that server until it returns, so keep them quick, or run more Reverb servers with Reverb's scaling. Like Octane, the process lives on, so static state in your code is shared between users' calls.
  • Errors arrive as over HTTP: a validation failure is a 422 with its errors, a denied gate a 403, and other exceptions are reported and sent as a 500 ("Server Error" unless app.debug).
  • Size: Reverb refuses messages over its max_message_size, 10 KB by default, which limits a call's arguments.
  • Streaming arrives all at once, when the method is done.
  • If Reverb is down, the waiting calls fail with a ServerError, and the next call opens a new socket.

Deploying

Restart Reverb after every deploy, as you would Octane: it keeps the code it started with.