🐰 Fastify RabbitMQ

A Fastify RabbitMQ plugin developed in pure TypeScript. It wraps the rabbitmq-client package so a Fastify app can publish, consume, and RPC over RabbitMQ (AMQP 0-9-1).

The build exports valid ESM and CJS for cross-compatibility.

If you use this package, please consider giving it a ⭐ — it raises visibility and brings in more contribution from the outside.

This documentation covers how to use the plugin. The decorator app.rabbitmq is a live rabbitmq-client Connection, so its full API is available — for publisher/consumer/RPC option details, see External Libraries.

🟢 Requires Node.js ≥ 20.15.

Table of Contents

1. Install
2. Basic Usage
3. Recipes
   1. Publish a message
   2. Consume a queue
   3. RPC (request/response)
   4. Declare exchanges, queues, and bindings
   5. Multiple connections with namespaces
   6. Encapsulate messaging in your own plugin
4. API Reference
5. Plugin Options
6. External Libraries
7. Acknowledgements
8. License

📦 Install

npm install fastify-rabbitmq

Requires Node.js ≥ 20.15.

🚀 Basic Usage

Register the plugin (before any routes that use it):

import fastify from "fastify";
import fastifyRabbitMQ from "fastify-rabbitmq";

const app = fastify();

await app.register(fastifyRabbitMQ, {
  connection: "amqp://guest:guest@localhost",
});

Registering decorates the Fastify instance with app.rabbitmq — a live rabbitmq-client Connection. Use it to create publishers, consumers, and RPC clients, or to declare topology.

🧩 Recipes

1. Publish a message

const publisher = app.rabbitmq.createPublisher({
  confirm: true,
  maxAttempts: 1,
});

await publisher.send("foo", "bar"); // routing key "foo", body "bar"

In a route, reach the instance via request.server:

app.get("/publish", async (request, reply) => {
  const publisher = request.server.rabbitmq.createPublisher({ confirm: true });
  await publisher.send("foo", "bar");
  return { sent: true };
});

2. Consume a queue

const consumer = app.rabbitmq.createConsumer(
  {
    queue: "foo",
    queueOptions: { durable: true },
  },
  async (msg) => {
    app.log.info({ body: msg.body }, "received");
    // ...handle the message...
  },
);

3. RPC (request/response)

const rpc = app.rabbitmq.createRPCClient({ confirm: true });
const response = await rpc.send("my-rpc-queue", "ping");
app.log.info({ response: response.body }, "rpc reply");

4. Declare exchanges, queues, and bindings

await app.rabbitmq.queueDeclare({ queue: "foo", durable: true });
await app.rabbitmq.exchangeDeclare({ exchange: "my-exchange", type: "topic" });
await app.rabbitmq.queueBind({
  queue: "foo",
  exchange: "my-exchange",
  routingKey: "foo.#",
});

5. Multiple connections with namespaces

To talk to more than one broker (or keep separate connections), register the plugin once per namespace; each is reachable at app.rabbitmq.<namespace>:

await app.register(fastifyRabbitMQ, {
  connection: "amqp://guest:guest@broker-a",
  namespace: "a",
});
await app.register(fastifyRabbitMQ, {
  connection: "amqp://guest:guest@broker-b",
  namespace: "b",
});

const pubA = app.rabbitmq.a.createPublisher();
const pubB = app.rabbitmq.b.createPublisher();

Registering the same namespace twice throws FASTIFY_RABBIT_MQ_ERR_SETUP_ERRORS.

6. Encapsulate messaging in your own plugin

This is the pattern the plugin is built for, and the reason it is a plugin at all. Fastify's encapsulation lets you keep every messaging concern — the connection, the topology, the publishers, the consumers, and their shutdown — in one plugin, and expose just a small, intent-named surface (a decorator like app.events) to the rest of the app. Your routes publish business events; they never see exchanges, routing keys, or the AMQP client.

Wrap it with fastify-plugin so the decorator is visible to sibling plugins and routes (without fp, the decorator would be trapped inside this plugin's encapsulation context):

// plugins/messaging.ts
import fp from "fastify-plugin";
import fastifyRabbitMQ, { type Publisher } from "fastify-rabbitmq";

declare module "fastify" {
  interface FastifyInstance {
    events: Publisher;
  }
}

export default fp(
  async (app) => {
    // 1. Open the connection.
    await app.register(fastifyRabbitMQ, {
      connection: process.env.RABBITMQ_URL ?? "amqp://guest:guest@localhost",
    });

    // 2. Declare the topology and a publisher once, at startup. The publisher
    //    re-declares these on every reconnect, so the exchange always exists
    //    before the first send.
    const publisher = app.rabbitmq.createPublisher({
      confirm: true,
      maxAttempts: 2,
      exchanges: [{ exchange: "events", type: "topic" }],
    });

    // 3. Expose one intent-named sender. Routes call app.events.send(...) and
    //    stay ignorant of AMQP.
    app.decorate("events", publisher);

    // 4. Run consumers as part of the app lifecycle. The consumer manages its
    //    own channel and re-subscribes across reconnects.
    const consumer = app.rabbitmq.createConsumer(
      {
        queue: "user-events",
        queueOptions: { durable: true },
        queueBindings: [{ exchange: "events", routingKey: "user.#" }],
      },
      async (msg) => {
        app.log.info({ body: msg.body }, "user event");
        // ...handle the message; throw to nack/retry...
      },
    );

    // 5. Tear everything down with the app, so a restart or test closes
    //    cleanly instead of leaking connections.
    app.addHook("onClose", async () => {
      await consumer.close();
      await publisher.close();
    });
  },
  { name: "messaging" },
);

Register it once, then publish from anywhere:

import messaging from "./plugins/messaging";

await app.register(messaging);

app.post("/signup", async (request, reply) => {
  await app.events.send(
    { exchange: "events", routingKey: "user.created" },
    request.body,
  );
  return { accepted: true };
});

Why this shape works well:

• One place owns messaging. Connection, topology, publishers, consumers, and shutdown live together; the rest of the app depends only on app.events.
• Startup declares, routes send. Topology is declared once at boot, so the first request never races a missing exchange.
• Lifecycle is handled. The onClose hook closes the consumer and publisher with the app — important for graceful shutdown and for tests that start and stop Fastify repeatedly.
• Swappable. Because routes only know app.events, you can change brokers, add a namespace, or stub the decorator in a test without touching route code.

The types you need — Publisher, Consumer, RPCClient, Connection, ConnectionOptions, Envelope, the message types, and the AMQP error classes — are re-exported from fastify-rabbitmq. Import them from here, not from rabbitmq-client.

📖 API Reference (fastify.rabbitmq)

app.rabbitmq is a rabbitmq-client Connection (and, with namespaces, an index of them). The methods you will use most:

Method	Description
createPublisher(options?)	Create a Publisher (.send(routingKey, body)).
createConsumer(options, handler)	Create a Consumer bound to a queue; handler(msg) runs per message.
createRPCClient(options?)	Create an RPC client (.send(queue, body) returns the reply).
exchangeDeclare(params)	Declare an exchange.
queueDeclare(params)	Declare a queue.
queueBind(params)	Bind a queue to an exchange.
acquire()	Acquire a raw channel.
ready()	Resolve once the connection is established.
close()	Close the connection.

The full option shapes for each come from rabbitmq-client — see External Libraries.

⚙️ Plugin Options

Pass these to app.register(fastifyRabbitMQ, options):

connection

A connection string (e.g. "amqp://guest:guest@localhost") or a ConnectionOptions object from rabbitmq-client pointing at the broker. Required.

namespace

string — register the plugin more than once by giving each instance a unique namespace; the connection is then exposed at app.rabbitmq.<namespace>. Re-using a namespace fails to load.

🔌 External Libraries

This plugin documents only its own surface. For publisher/consumer/RPC options, connection options (ConnectionOptions), TLS, and reconnect behavior, see the package it wraps:

• rabbitmq-client — the underlying AMQP client (repo: cody-greene/node-rabbitmq-client).

🙏 Acknowledgements

• rabbitmq-client
• Fastify
• ...and my Wife and Baby Girl.

📄 License

Licensed under MIT.