Apache Arrow Flight Client for Node.js

⚠️ Experimental — API may change before v1.0.0

Apache Arrow Flight client implementation for Node.js®. Native gRPC-based client built on top of apache-arrow, nice-grpc, and official Arrow Flight protobuf definitions.

To improve reliability and maintainability the code is based TypeScript. Streaming support (DoGet, DoPut). Compatible with:

• PyArrow Flight Server
• DuckDB Flight
• Arrow Java / C++ servers

Getting Started

Installation

To use Flight Client in your project, run:

npm install arrow-flight-client

Requires Node.js ≥ 18

Table of Contents

class FlightClient

• constructor: new FlightClient(address, options)

• flightClient.close()

• flightClient.grpc

• listFlights(client)

• getFlightInfo(client, descriptor)

• doGetTable(client, ticket)

• doPutTable(client, table, path)

constructor: new FlightClient(address, options)

• address <String> The address of the Arrow Flight gRPC server (e.g. localhost:8815).
• options <Object>
  • tls <Boolean> includes an implementation of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocols, built on top of OpenSSL. Default: false.
  • metadata Default: undefined.

Create a client:

import { FlightClient } from 'arrow-flight-client';
s
const client = new FlightClient('localhost:8815');

Authentication & Metadata. You can pass metadata headers (e.g. auth tokens):

const client = new FlightClient('localhost:8815', {
  metadata: {
    authorization: 'Bearer my-token'
  }
});

flightClient.close()

• returns: <Promise> Following successful read, the Promise is resolved with an value with a undefined.

Premature connection close before the response is received.

flightClient.grpc

Returns the internal gRPC client (readonly).

listFlights(client)

• client <FlightClient> gRPC client.
• returns: <Promise> Following successful read, the Promise is resolved with an value with a Array. List available flights.

Returns all available flights from the server:

import { listFlights } from 'arrow-flight-client';

const flights = await listFlights(client);
console.log(flights);

getFlightInfo(client, descriptor)

• client <FlightClient> gRPC client.
• descriptor <FlightDescriptor> describing the desired Flight.
• returns: <Promise> Fetches metadata for a specific flight.

import { getFlightInfo } from 'arrow-flight-client';

const descriptor = {
  type: FlightDescriptor_DescriptorType.PATH,
  path: ['example']
};
const info = await getFlightInfo(client, descriptor);
console.log(info);

doGetTable(client, ticket)

• client <FlightClient> gRPC client.
• ticket <Uint8Array> containing the data set identifier.
• returns: <Promise> data stream FlightData.

Fetches Arrow Table via DoGet and returns an apache-arrow:

import { doGetTable } from 'arrow-flight-client';

const flight = flights[0];
const ticket = flight.endpoint[0].ticket.ticket;
const table = await doGetTable(client, ticket);
console.log(
  table.toString()
);

See FlightData stream:

for await (const batch of client.grpc.doGet(ticket)) {
  console.log(batch);
}

doPutTable(client, table, path)

Uploads an Arrow Table via DoPut.

import { doPutTable } from 'arrow-flight-client';
import { tableFromArrays } from 'apache-arrow';

const table = tableFromArrays({
  id: [1, 2, 3],
  name: ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Carol']
});

await doPutTable(client, table, ['example', 'table']);

---

🧠 Implementation Notes

• This client uses gRPC streaming under the hood

• Arrow data is transferred using Arrow IPC

• Built on:

  • apache-arrow
  • nice-grpc
  • ts-proto

Implementation details

• Built on top of ts-proto generated Flight protobuf definitions
• Uses nice-grpc v2.x (async generator–based API)
• Strict TypeScript types (no any, no unsafe casts)
• gRPC metadata is handled via client middleware

---

📚 Build

• Build TS services from proto files.
• See: https://github.com/stephenh/ts-proto
• Get proto files: https://github.com/apache/arrow

protoc \
  --plugin=protoc-gen-ts_proto=./node_modules/.bin/protoc-gen-ts_proto \
  --proto_path=./contracts \
  --ts_proto_out=./src/generated \
  --ts_proto_opt=outputServices=nice-grpc,outputServices=generic-definitions,useExactTypes=false \
  --ts_proto_opt="env=node" \
  --ts_proto_opt="esModuleInterop=true" \
  ./contracts/*.proto

---

🛣 Roadmap

• Proper Arrow IPC streaming (RecordBatchReader)
• DoExchange
• [*] Middleware support
• TLS configuration helpers

Limitations (current)

• DoExchange not yet implemented
• IPC parsing currently buffers the full stream (streaming batches planned)
• No server implementation (client only)

---

🚧 Project Status

This library is currently experimental.

• The Flight protocol implementation is functional
• The API is not yet considered stable
• Breaking changes may occur between minor releases

Once the API stabilizes, the project will follow semantic versioning starting from v1.0.0.

• Apache Arrow
• nice-grpc
• ts-proto