HTTP Request

Overview

The http_request node sends a single HTTP request to an external endpoint and passes the response into the workflow. It supports all common methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE), custom headers, and an arbitrary body. Use it to call third-party REST APIs, push events to webhooks, or fetch remote data that feeds downstream nodes. The node does not retry automatically; wrap it in a try_catch node if resilience is needed.

Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
url	string	Yes	—	The full URL to call, including scheme and path. Supports {{variable}} interpolation from workflow variables.
method	string	Yes	"GET"	HTTP method: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE.
headers	object	No	{}	Key-value map of request headers. Use this for Authorization, Content-Type, and other standard headers.
body	string	No	—	Request body as a raw string. For JSON payloads set Content-Type: application/json in headers and stringify the object. Ignored for GET and DELETE.
timeout_ms	number	No	10000	Maximum milliseconds to wait for a response before the node fails with a timeout error.
follow_redirects	boolean	No	true	Whether to automatically follow HTTP 3xx redirects. Set to false to capture the redirect response directly.
response_encoding	string	No	"utf-8"	Character encoding for the response body: "utf-8" or "base64". Use "base64" for binary responses.

Inputs

Port	Type	Description
input	object	Upstream data available for {{variable}} interpolation in url, headers, and body.

Outputs

Port	Type	Description
output	object	Contains status (number), headers (object), and body (string or parsed JSON if response Content-Type is application/json).
error	object	Present on network failure or timeout; contains message, code, and status (when the server responded with a 4xx/5xx).

Example

{
  "nodeType": "http_request",
  "config": {
    "url": "https://api.example.com/v1/summarise",
    "method": "POST",
    "headers": {
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
::: v-pre
      "Authorization": "Bearer {{env.API_KEY}}"
:::
    },
::: v-pre
    "body": "{\"text\": \"{{input.content}}\", \"max_words\": 100}",
:::
    "timeout_ms": 15000,
    "follow_redirects": true
  }
}

Notes

• HTTP 4xx and 5xx responses are not automatically treated as errors — the node succeeds and the status code is available in output.status. Add a switch or if_condition node downstream to branch on status if needed.

• Environment secrets (API keys, tokens) should be stored as workflow environment variables and referenced via {{env.VARIABLE_NAME}} rather than hardcoded in headers or body.

• The node enforces a hard ceiling of 60 000 ms regardless of timeout_ms to prevent a single step from blocking the worker indefinitely.
• Response bodies larger than 10 MB are truncated; for large file transfers use object_storage_upload / object_storage_download nodes instead.