SurrealDB JavaScript SDK

Documentation

View the SDK documentation here.

Learn SurrealDB

• A Tour of SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/learn/tour
• Aeon’s Surreal Renaissance (Interative book): https://surrealdb.com/learn/book
• Documentation: https://surrealdb.com/docs

How to install

Install with a package manager

Run the following command to add the SDK to your project:

# using npm
npm i surrealdb@alpha

# or using pnpm
pnpm i surrealdb@alpha

# or using yarn
yarn add surrealdb@alpha

# or using bun
bun add surrealdb@alpha

You can now import the SDK into your project with:

import { Surreal } from "surrealdb";

Install for the browser with a CDN

For fast prototyping we provide a browser-ready bundle. You can import it with:

import Surreal from "https://unpkg.com/surrealdb";
// or
import Surreal from "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/surrealdb";

NOTE: this bundle is not optimized for production! So don’t use it in production!

Getting started

In the example below you can see how to connect to a remote instance of SurrealDB, authenticating with the database, and issuing queries for creating, updating, and selecting data from records.

Don’t have a SurrealDB instance yet?

If you don’t already have a SurrealDB instance running, you can easily get started by using Surreal Cloud. Simply sign up here to provision a free SurrealDB instance in the cloud. This will allow you to experiment with SurrealDB without any local setup, and you’ll be able to connect to your new instance right away.

Connecting

The first step in using the SDK is to instantiate the SurrealDB client, after which you can connect to a SurrealDB instance using a connection URI. After that, select a namespace and database, and signin as a namespace, database, root, or record user.

Make sure you have created a user before you signin.

import { Surreal, RecordId, Table } from "surrealdb";

// Instantiate the SurrealDB client
const db = new Surreal();

// Connect to the specified instance
await db.connect("wss://my-instance.aws-euw1.surreal.cloud");

// Select a specific namespace / database
await db.use({
    namespace: "test",
    database: "test"
});

// Signin as a namespace, database, root, or record user
await db.signin({
    username: "root",
    password: "root",
});

Sending queries

After you have connected to a SurrealDB instance, you can send queries to the database. Queries can be sent in two ways:

• Type-safe using the query builder methods
• As a string using the query method

Type-safe query builders

const personTable = new Table("person");

// Create a new person with a random id
let created = await db.create<Person>(personTable, {
    title: "Founder & CEO",
    name: {
        first: "Tobie",
        last: "Morgan Hitchcock",
    },
    marketing: false,
});

// Update a person record with a specific id
let updated = await db.update<Person>(created.id).merge({
    marketing: true,
});

// Select all people records
let people = await db.select<Person>(personTable);

String based queries

const personTable = new Table("person");

// Execute a query and collect the results
let [created] = await db
    query("CREATE ONLY $table CONTENT $content", {
        table: personTable,
        content: {
            title: "Founder & CEO",
            name: {
                first: "Tobie",
                last: "Morgan Hitchcock",
            },
        },
    })
    .collect<[Person]>();

Subscribing to live queries

You can subscribe to live queries to receive updates when the data in the database changes.

// Subscribe to all records in the person table
const subscription = await db.live(personTable);

// Use an async iterator
for await (const { action, value } of subscription) {
    if (action === "CREATE") {
        console.log("A new person was created:", value);
    }
}

Next steps

We have only scratched the surface of what the JavaScript SDK can do. For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Embedding SurrealDB in the browser

The WebAssembly engine for the JavaScript SDK provides a powerful way to extend your SurrealDB client with support for running embedded databases. The engine allows you to run SurrealDB in-memory or persisted to the browsers IndexedDB storage with minimal effort.

Install with a package manager

Run the following command to add the WebAssembly engine to your project:

npm i @surrealdb/wasm@alpha
# or
pnpm i @surrealdb/wasm@alpha
# or
yarn add @surrealdb/wasm@alpha
# or
bun add @surrealdb/wasm@alpha

Registering the WebAssembly engine

You can now configure the SurrealDB client to use the WebAssembly engine.

import { createWasmEngines } from "@surrealdb/wasm";
import { Surreal } from "surrealdb";

// Register the WebAssembly engine
const db = new Surreal({
    engines: createWasmEngines(),
});

// Connect to an in-memory instance
await db.connect("mem://");

// Connect to an IndexedDB instance
await db.connect("indxdb://demo");

Usage with Vite

When using Vite the following configuration is recommended to be placed in your vite.config.ts to ensure the WebAssembly engine is properly bundled.

optimizeDeps: {
    exclude: ["@surrealdb/wasm"],
    esbuildOptions: {
        target: "esnext",
    },
},
esbuild: {
    supported: {
        "top-level-await": true
    },
}

Embedding SurrealDB in Node.js, Deno, and Bun

The Node.js engine for the JavaScript SDK provides a powerful way to extend your SurrealDB client with support for running embedded databases. The engine allows you to run SurrealDB in-memory or persisted to disk (RocksDB or SurrealKV) with minimal effort.

Install with a package manager

Run the following command to add the Node.js engine to your project:

npm i @surrealdb/node@alpha
# or
pnpm i @surrealdb/node@alpha
# or
yarn add @surrealdb/node@alpha
# or
bun add @surrealdb/node@alpha

Registering the Node.js engine

You can now configure the SurrealDB client to use the Node.js engine when running in Node.js, Deno, or Bun.

import { createNodeEngines } from "@surrealdb/node";
import { Surreal } from "surrealdb";

// Register the Node.js engine
const db = new Surreal({
    engines: createNodeEngines(),
});

// Connect to an in-memory instance
await db.connect("mem://");

// Connect to an RocksDB instance
await db.connect("rocksdb://path/to/storage.db");

// Connect to an SurrealKV instance
await db.connect("surrealkv://path/to/storage.db");

// Connect to an SurrealKV instance with versioning
await db.connect("surrealkv+versioned://path/to/storage.db");

Contributing

Local setup

This is a Bun project, not Node.js. It works across all major runtimes, however.

Supported environments

• Deno
• Node.js
• Bun
• Web Browsers

Requirements

• Bun
• SurrealDB (for testing)

Build for all supported environments

For Deno, no build is needed. For all other environments run

bun run build.

Code Quality Fixes

bun run qa

Code Quality unsafe fixes

bun run qau

Run tests for WS

bun run test

Run tests for HTTP

SURREAL_DEFAULT_PROTOCOL=http bun test

PRs

Before you commit, please format and lint your code accordingly to check for errors, and ensure all tests still pass

Local setup

For local development the Bun extension and Biome extension for VSCode are helpful.

Directory structure

• ./biome.json contains settings for code quality.
• ./scripts contains the build and publish scripts.
• ./packages/sdk contains the JavaScript SDK source code.
• ./packages/node contains the Node.js SDK source code.
• ./packages/wasm contains the WebAssembly SDK source code.
• ./packages/tests contains the testing suite.
• ./demo/wasm contains a WebAssembly demo.
• ./demo/node contains a Node.js demo.