I was building a Nuxt 3 application recently, and I hit a familiar wall. My API calls were scattered, error handling was inconsistent, and switching between server and client contexts felt clunky. I needed a cleaner way to talk to my backend. That’s when I decided to look seriously at integrating Ky. If you’ve ever felt your HTTP client code is more complex than it should be, you’re in the right place. Let’s build something better together.
Ky is a tiny, modern HTTP client. Think of it as a friendly wrapper around the native browser Fetch API. It removes the boilerplate and adds sensible defaults. Why does this matter for Nuxt? Because Nuxt 3 runs your code in two places: the server (Node.js) and the client (the browser). You need an HTTP client that works seamlessly in both worlds without changing your code.
The native fetch is available in both environments, which is great. But it’s low-level. You have to manually parse JSON, check for errors, and set up retry logic every time. Ky does this for you. It lets you focus on what your data does, not on the repetitive details of fetching it.
So, how do we bring Ky into a Nuxt 3 project? It starts with installation. Open your terminal in the project root.
npm install kyNow, let’s create a shared instance. This is the key. Instead of importing Ky directly in every component, we create one configured instance. We’ll put it in a composable so the whole app can use it. Create a file: composables/useApi.ts.
// composables/useApi.ts
import ky from 'ky';
export const useApi = () => {
// Create a Ky instance with our app's defaults
const api = ky.create({
prefixUrl: 'https://my-api.com/v1', // Your base API URL
timeout: 10000, // Request fails after 10 seconds
retry: 2, // Retry failed requests twice
hooks: {
beforeRequest: [
request => {
// Inject an auth token, for example
const token = localStorage.getItem('token'); // Use cookies on server!
if (token) {
request.headers.set('Authorization', `Bearer ${token}`);
}
}
]
}
});
return { api };
};But wait, there’s a problem here. Did you spot it? We used localStorage. That doesn’t exist on the server. This is the core challenge of universal apps. How do we handle environment-specific logic?
Nuxt 3 provides the useRuntimeConfig composable and the useRequestHeaders helper for this. We need to adapt our code. Let’s make it universal.
// composables/useApi.ts - Improved Version
import ky from 'ky';
import { useRuntimeConfig, useRequestHeaders } from '#imports';
export const useApi = () => {
const config = useRuntimeConfig();
const headers = useRequestHeaders(['cookie']); // Forward cookies to the API
const api = ky.create({
prefixUrl: config.public.apiBase, // Store base URL in nuxt.config.ts
timeout: 10000,
retry: {
limit: 2,
methods: ['get', 'post'] // Only retry safe methods
},
hooks: {
beforeRequest: [
request => {
// Use a cookie for auth that works on server & client
if (headers.cookie) {
request.headers.set('cookie', headers.cookie);
}
}
],
afterResponse: [
async (request, options, response) => {
// Global response logging or error formatting
if (!response.ok) {
const error = await response.json();
// You can throw a custom, formatted error here
throw new Error(`API Error: ${error.message}`);
}
}
]
}
});
return { api };
};See the difference? We pulled the base URL from the runtime config. This keeps secrets out of our code. We also used useRequestHeaders to safely pass cookies for authentication, whether we’re on the server or client. This pattern is crucial.
Now, using it in a component or page is straightforward and consistent.
<!-- pages/users.vue -->
<script setup lang="ts">
const { api } = useApi();
// Fetch data
const { data: users } = await useAsyncData('users', () =>
api.get('users').json()
);
// Post data
const handleSubmit = async (userData) => {
try {
const newUser = await api.post('users', { json: userData }).json();
// Update local state
} catch (error) {
// Error is already formatted by our hook!
console.error(error.message);
}
};
</script>The useAsyncData wrapper is a Nuxt 3 powerhouse. It works with our Ky instance to fetch data, automatically handling duplicate requests and integrating with Nuxt’s server-side rendering. The error handling is clean because our global hook pre-formats errors.
What about type safety? Ky is built with TypeScript. When you call .json(), it tries to infer the return type. For full safety, you can define the expected shape.
interface User {
id: number;
name: string;
email: string;
}
const users = await api.get('users').json<User[]>();Now your editor will autocomplete users[0].name and warn you if you try to access users[0].invalidProperty. It’s a small thing that prevents big bugs.
One question I often get: “Why not just use $fetch, which Nuxt provides?” It’s a good question. $fetch is great and is built on ohmyfetch, which is similar to Ky. The benefit of explicitly using Ky is control. You define all the behaviors—retry logic, timeout, hooks—in one place. It becomes a documented contract for how your app communicates. It’s also easier to mock for testing.
Think about the lifecycle of a request in your app. With this setup, every outgoing call has a timeout, will retry on network blips, and will have auth headers attached. Every incoming response is checked and errors are formatted consistently. This reliability is what makes user experiences feel solid.
The result isn’t just cleaner code. It’s more reliable features. When your HTTP client logic is centralized, fixing a bug or adding a feature like request logging happens in one file, not fifty. Updating an API endpoint version? Change the prefixUrl once. It’s the kind of structure that scales.
I encourage you to try this pattern. Start with the basic composable. Add hooks for logging requests in development or for tracking analytics. You’ll quickly see how it simplifies your data layer. What common pain point in your API interactions would this solve first?
Building with Nuxt 3 is about leveraging its full-stack capabilities. A robust, universal HTTP client is a cornerstone of that. Ky provides the simplicity and power to make it happen without the overhead. Give it a try in your next project. You might just find, as I did, that those frustrating data-fetching bugs become a thing of the past.
If this approach to managing API calls resonates with you, or if you have a different strategy, let’s continue the conversation. Share your thoughts in the comments below—I’d love to hear how you handle data fetching in your Nuxt applications. And if you found this guide helpful, please consider sharing it with other developers who might be facing the same challenges.
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