Realtime — WebSocket Communication

Sails provides two tiers of realtime support via sails-hook-sockets: low-level room-based messaging (sails.sockets) and high-level model-centric notifications (Resourceful PubSub). Both use Socket.IO under the hood and integrate seamlessly with Sails' request lifecycle.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• •Building chat, messaging, or collaborative features
• •Sending live notifications to specific users or groups
• •Broadcasting model changes (created, updated, destroyed) to subscribers
• •Tracking online presence or user status
• •Creating live dashboards with auto-updating data
• •Configuring WebSocket security, Redis adapters, or multi-server deployment
• •Integrating sails.io.js with React, Vue, or Svelte frontends

Rules

Read individual rule files for detailed explanations and code examples:

• •rules/getting-started.md - What realtime means in Sails, two-tier architecture, setup
• •rules/sails-sockets.md - Low-level sails.sockets API: rooms, broadcast, blast
• •rules/resourceful-pubsub.md - High-level model API: subscribe, publish, unsubscribe
• •rules/client-side.md - sails.io.js client library and frontend integration
• •rules/configuration.md - config/sockets.js, Redis adapter, security, lifecycle
• •rules/patterns.md - Chat rooms, notifications, presence, live dashboards