Connect two peers with WebTransport

Warning: This is an unstable API that is subject to change or removal at any time.
WebTransport is the web platform’s API for low-latency, multiplexed communication over HTTP/3. Browsers can use it where raw QUIC and TCP sockets are unavailable, and unlike WebSockets it offers many independent streams plus unreliable datagrams. Ende provides both the client API and, via Ende.upgradeWebTransport, the server side. This example runs both in one process. WebTransport runs over QUIC, which always requires TLS. Generate a local self-signed certificate with: openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout server.key -out server.crt -days 14 -nodes -subj "/CN=localhost" -addext "subjectAltName=DNS:localhost" -addext "basicConstraints=critical,CA:FALSE"

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const cert = Ende.readTextFileSync("./server.crt");
const key = Ende.readTextFileSync("./server.key");

The server side is a QUIC endpoint speaking the HTTP/3 ALPN protocol. Ende.upgradeWebTransport performs the WebTransport handshake on an accepted QUIC connection.

const endpoint = new Ende.QuicEndpoint({ hostname: "localhost", port: 4433 });
const listener = endpoint.listen({ alpnProtocols: ["h3"], cert, key });

(async () => {
  for await (const incoming of listener) {
    const conn = await incoming.accept();
    const transport = await Ende.upgradeWebTransport(conn);
    await transport.ready;

Echo the first message on each incoming bidirectional stream.

    const { value: stream } = await transport.incomingBidirectionalStreams
      .getReader().read();

    if (!stream)
      continue;

    const { value } = await stream.readable.getReader().read();
    const writer = stream.writable.getWriter();
    await writer.write(value);
    await writer.close();
  }
})();

Browsers normally require a certificate signed by a real CA, but serverCertificateHashes lets a client trust a specific self-signed certificate by the SHA-256 hash of its DER encoding. This is the standard way to develop locally with WebTransport.

const der = Ende.readFileSync("./server.der"); // openssl x509 -in server.crt -outform der -out server.der
const certHash = await crypto.subtle.digest("SHA-256", der);

const transport = new WebTransport("https://localhost:4433", {
  serverCertificateHashes: [{ algorithm: "sha-256", value: certHash }]
});

await transport.ready;

Streams work like their QUIC counterparts: open a bidirectional stream, write, and read the echo back.

const stream = await transport.createBidirectionalStream();
const writer = stream.writable.getWriter();
await writer.write(new TextEncoder().encode("hello WebTransport"));
const { value } = await stream.readable.getReader().read();
console.log(new TextDecoder().decode(value)); // hello WebTransport

transport.close();
endpoint.close();

Run this example locally using the Ende CLI:

ende run --unstable-net --allow-net --allow-read https://docs.ende.sh/examples/scripts/web_transport.ts

Connect two peers with WebTransport

Additional resources