2. Getting Started¶

Project Reference¶

Add the Zlink.HttpClient package to the consuming project. Only the framework contract package the HTTP client uses is installed alongside it — not the whole server runtime.

<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="Zlink.HttpClient" Version="0.10.0" />
</ItemGroup>

using Zlink.HttpClient;

First Request¶

using var client = ZLinkHttpClient.Create("http://127.0.0.1:18080")
    .Build();

var player = await client.Get("/players/7281").Fetch<PlayerProfile>();
Console.WriteLine(player.Name);

Start a builder with Create(baseUrl) and build the client with .Build().
The client is reusable and thread-safe. Typically you create it once and use it for a long time.
Manage the client's lifetime with using.

One-Line Request¶

For a one-off request, you can skip Build() and call methods directly on the builder.

var res = await ZLinkHttpClient.Create("https://game-api.example.internal")
    .Post("/games")
    .Body(new CreateGameReq("ranked-match-0611"))
    .Fetch<CreateGameRes>();

If you call it repeatedly, creating the client once and reusing it is better for connection pool reuse.

Getting Completion Via Callback¶

client.Get("/leaderboard").Async<Leaderboard>((error, response) =>
{
    if (error is not null)
    {
        Console.Error.WriteLine(error.Message); // Failures are also confirmed in the same callback.
        return;
    }

    Console.WriteLine(response!.Body.TopPlayer); // Use the successful response's typed body.
});

The callback suits a client that doesn't use awaitables, or event-loop code. Ordinary code that needs to keep computing from the completion value awaits Async<T>() instead (Chapter 7).

Next: Client Configuration →