RequestInit

The RequestInit dictionary of the Fetch API represents the set of options that can be used to configure a fetch request.

You can pass a RequestInit object into the Request() constructor, or directly into the fetch() function call.

You can also construct a Request with a RequestInit, and pass the Request to a fetch() call along with another RequestInit. If you do this, and the same option is set in both places, then the value passed directly into fetch() is used.

Instance properties

attributionReporting Optional Experimental

Indicates that you want the request's response to be able to register a JavaScript-based attribution source or attribution trigger. attributionReporting is an object containing the following properties:

eventSourceEligible

A boolean. If set to true, the request's response is eligible to register an attribution source. If set to false, it isn't.

triggerEligible

A boolean. If set to true, the request's response is eligible to register an attribution trigger. If set to false, it isn't.

See the Attribution Reporting API for more details.

body Optional

The request body contains content to send to the server, for example in a POST or PUT request. It is specified as an instance of any of the following types:

See Setting a body for more details.

browsingTopics Optional Experimental

A boolean specifying that the selected topics for the current user should be sent in a Sec-Browsing-Topics header with the associated request.

See Using the Topics API for more details.

cache Optional

The cache mode you want to use for the request. This may be any one of the following values:

default

The browser looks in its HTTP cache for a response matching the request.

  • If there is a match and it is fresh, it will be returned from the cache.
  • If there is a match but it is stale, the browser will make a conditional request to the remote server. If the server indicates that the resource has not changed, it will be returned from the cache. Otherwise the resource will be downloaded from the server and the cache will be updated.
  • If there is no match, the browser will make a normal request, and will update the cache with the downloaded resource.
no-store

The browser fetches the resource from the remote server without first looking in the cache, and will not update the cache with the downloaded resource.

reload

The browser fetches the resource from the remote server without first looking in the cache, but then will update the cache with the downloaded resource.

no-cache

The browser looks in its HTTP cache for a response matching the request.

  • If there is a match, fresh or stale, the browser will make a conditional request to the remote server. If the server indicates that the resource has not changed, it will be returned from the cache. Otherwise the resource will be downloaded from the server and the cache will be updated.
  • If there is no match, the browser will make a normal request, and will update the cache with the downloaded resource.
force-cache

The browser looks in its HTTP cache for a response matching the request.

  • If there is a match, fresh or stale, it will be returned from the cache.
  • If there is no match, the browser will make a normal request, and will update the cache with the downloaded resource.
only-if-cached

The browser looks in its HTTP cache for a response matching the request. Experimental

  • If there is a match, fresh or stale, it will be returned from the cache.
  • If there is no match, a network error is returned.

The "only-if-cached" mode can only be used if the request's mode is "same-origin". Cached redirects will be followed if the request's redirect property is "follow" and the redirects do not violate the "same-origin" mode.

credentials Optional

Controls whether or not the browser sends credentials with the request, as well as whether any Set-Cookie response headers are respected. Credentials are cookies, TLS client certificates, or authentication headers containing a username and password. This option may be any one of the following values:

omit

Never send credentials in the request or include credentials in the response.

same-origin

Only send and include credentials for same-origin requests.

include

Always include credentials, even for cross-origin requests.

Including credentials in cross-origin requests can make a site vulnerable to CSRF attacks, so even if credentials is set to include, the server must also agree to their inclusion by including the Access-Control-Allow-Credentials in its response. Additionally, in this situation the server must explicitly specify the client's origin in the Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header (that is, * is not allowed).

See Including credentials for more details.

Defaults to same-origin.

headers Optional

Any headers you want to add to your request, contained within a Headers object or an object literal whose keys are the names of headers and whose values are the header values.

Many headers are set automatically by the browser and can't be set by a script: these are called Forbidden header names.

If the mode option is set to no-cors, you can only set CORS-safelisted request headers.

See Setting headers for more details.

integrity Optional

Contains the subresource integrity value of the request.

This will be checked when the resource is fetched, just as it would be when the integrity attribute is set on a <script> element. The browser will compute the hash of the fetched resource using the specified algorithm, and if the result does not match the value specified, the browser will reject the fetch request with a network error.

The format of this option is <hash-algo>-<hash-source> where:

  • <hash-algo> is one of the following values: sha256, sha384, or sha512
  • <hash-source> is the Base64-encoding of the result of hashing the resource with the specified hash algorithm.

Defaults to an empty string.

keepalive Optional

A boolean. When set to true, the browser will not abort the associated request if the page that initiated it is unloaded before the request is complete. This enables a fetch() request to send analytics at the end of a session even if the user navigates away from or closes the page.

This has some advantages over using Navigator.sendBeacon() for the same purpose. For example, you can use HTTP methods other than POST, customize request properties, and access the server response via the fetch Promise fulfillment. It is also available in service workers.

The body size for keepalive requests is limited to 64 kibibytes.

Defaults to false.

method Optional

The request method.

Defaults to GET.

mode Optional

Sets cross-origin behavior for the request. One of the following values:

same-origin

Disallows cross-origin requests. If a same-origin request is sent to a different origin, the result is a network error.

cors

If the request is cross-origin then it will use the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) mechanism. Only CORS-safelisted response headers are exposed in the response.

no-cors

Disables CORS for cross-origin requests. This option comes with the following restrictions:

  • The method may only be one of HEAD, GET or POST.
  • The headers may only be CORS-safelisted request headers, with the additional restriction that the Range header is also not allowed. This also applies to any headers added by service workers.
  • The response is opaque, meaning that its headers and body are not available to JavaScript, and its status code is always 0.

The main application for no-cors is for a service worker: although the response to a no-cors request can't be read by JavaScript, it can be cached by a service worker and then used as a response to an intercepted fetch request. Note that in this situation you don't know whether the request succeeded or not, so you should adopt a caching strategy which enables the cached response to be updated from the network (such as cache first with cache refresh).

Used only by HTML navigation. A navigate request is created only while navigating between documents.

See Making cross-origin requests for more details.

Defaults to cors.

priority Optional

Specifies the priority of the fetch request relative to other requests of the same type. Must be one of the following:

high

A high priority fetch request relative to other requests of the same type.

low

A low priority fetch request relative to other requests of the same type.

auto

No user preference for the fetch priority. It is used if no value is set or if an invalid value is set.

Defaults to auto.

redirect Optional

Determines the browser's behavior in case the server replies with a redirect status. One of the following values:

follow

Automatically follow redirects.

error

Reject the promise with a network error when a redirect status is returned.

manual

Return a response with almost all fields filtered out, to enable a service worker to store the response and later replay it.

Defaults to follow.

referrer Optional

A string specifying the value to use for the request's Referer header. One of the following:

A same-origin relative or absolute URL

Set the Referer header to the given value. Relative URLs are resolved relative to the URL of the page that made the request.

An empty string

Omit the Referer header.

about:client

Set the Referer header to the default value for the context of the request (for example, the URL of the page that made the request).

Defaults to about:client.

referrerPolicy Optional

A string that sets a policy for the Referer header. The syntax and semantics of this option are exactly the same as for the Referrer-Policy header.

signal Optional

An AbortSignal. If this option is set, the request can be canceled by calling abort() on the corresponding AbortController.

Examples

Passing options into fetch()

In this example we pass the method, body, and headers options directly into the fetch() method call:

js
async function post() {
  const response = await fetch("https://example.org/post", {
    method: "POST",
    body: JSON.stringify({ username: "example" }),
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
  });

  console.log(response.status);
}

Passing options into the Request() constructor

In this example we create a Request, passing the same set of options into its constructor, and then pass the request into fetch():

js
async function post() {
  const request = new Request("https://example.org/post", {
    method: "POST",
    body: JSON.stringify({ username: "example" }),
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
  });

  const response = await fetch(request);

  console.log(response.status);
}

Passing options into both Request() and fetch()

In this example we create a Request, passing the method, headers, and body options into its constructor. We then pass the request into fetch() along with body and referrer options:

js
async function post() {
  const request = new Request("https://example.org/post", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ username: "example1" }),
  });

  const response = await fetch(request, {
    body: JSON.stringify({ username: "example2" }),
    referrer: "",
  });

  console.log(response.status);
}

In this case the request will be sent with the following options:

  • method: "POST"
  • headers: {"Content-Type": "application/json"}
  • body: '{"username":"example2"}'
  • referrer: ""

Specifications

Specification
Fetch Standard
# requestinit

See also