Extending the protocol with custom messages

[fbartho]

Story

As a server developer who is designing their own backend using GraphQL

I want the ability to use a single graphql-ws websocket for most of my API calls. I would like to additionally have custom messages that are not related to GraphQL coming through this channel.

So that I can reuse this websocket for non-graphql tasks and still benefit from the rest of the protocol and keep-alive logic.

Acceptance criteria

• library consumer can extend the protocol with custom messages.
• custom messages should be of enumerated, known types
• nice-to-have: built-in validation hooks
• nice-to-have: strong typescript types

[enisdenjo]

While a good idea, it goes beyond the scope of graphql-ws. A lot of code needs to be added for supporting custom messages and handling them both on the client and server side - I don't think it's worth it.

As an alterantive, you can use the ping/pong messages and it's payload to pass metadata between.

Converted this to an "Idea" discussion. Let's see...