Good default configuration for axios in node.js

axios-instance-config.js

const axios = require('axios');
const http = require('http');
const https = require('https');

module.exports = axios.create({
  //60 sec timeout
  timeout: 60000,

  //keepAlive pools and reuses TCP connections, so it's faster
  httpAgent: new http.Agent({ keepAlive: true }),
  httpsAgent: new https.Agent({ keepAlive: true }),
  
  //follow up to 10 HTTP 3xx redirects
  maxRedirects: 10,
  
  //cap the maximum content length we'll accept to 50MBs, just in case
  maxContentLength: 50 * 1000 * 1000
});

//optionally add interceptors here...

My 2 cents here.
It's good that you enable KeepAlive feature of Http Agent, however, the default timeout behaviour for NodeJS built-in HttpAgent is a bit "impractical". Let me explain what that mean.
Since you are using KeepAlive, the socket is re-used across connections. The problem happens when remote service changes its IP address, which could happen during redeployment. The request starts triggering timeout because the underlying socket is now pointing to a IP which leads to nowhere. And, by default, HttpAgent do nothing about it. AFAIK, it's still true on version 8. https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v8.x/docs/api/net.html#net_socket_settimeout_timeout_callback . The result of the problem is that all the requests keep timing-out and it's probably hard to find out what's wrong.
In our use-case, we use https://github.com/node-modules/agentkeepalive which actually handle that timeout event nicely.
Hope it helps.

@supertong can you use agentkeepalive with axios? how?

In order to use agentkeepalive in axios, you can pass its agents in request config properties httpAgentand httpsAgent.

Something like

const Agent = require('agentkeepalive');
const keepAliveAgent = new Agent({
  maxSockets: 100,
  maxFreeSockets: 10,
  timeout: 60000, // active socket keepalive for 60 seconds
  freeSocketTimeout: 30000, // free socket keepalive for 30 seconds
});

const axiosInstance = axios.create({httpAgent: keepAliveAgent});
...

Thank you!

These
... httpAgent: new http.Agent({ keepAlive: true }), httpsAgent: new https.Agent({ keepAlive: true }), ...

fixed the weird HPE_INVALID_CHUNK_SIZE error when talking to a proxied API server that was not properly set up.

Hi, i would like to ask,
is this for NODE.JS server ? or i also can apply this method in react app ?

Hi, i would like to ask,
is this for NODE.JS server ? or i also can apply this method in react app ?

This is for node.js only.

Hi, i would like to ask,
is this for NODE.JS server ? or i also can apply this method in react app ?

@squalvj: Did you ever find a solution for react app? If you could kindly share your solution, would be greatly appreciated!

Author's small explanation: https://medium.com/@ccnokes/one-con-i-discovered-about-axios-recently-is-that-it-doesnt-have-the-best-default-configuration-e6e3a8cba6fa

Thank you @ccnokes and @supertong - solved some very frustrating issues thanks to your comments!