API client / Getting started / Customize

Customize your Scala client

To change individual requests made with an API client, pass individual request options. To change all requests, create a custom configuration. This lets you change timeouts, add HTTP headers, and so on.

Add HTTP headers to every request

Adding HTTP headers to your requests lets you set parameters such as a user identifier or an IP address. This can be useful for analytics, geographical search, or applying API key rate limits.

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val client = new AlgoliaClient(
  "YourApplicationID",
  "YourWriteAPIKey",
  customHeader = Map(
    "NAME-OF-HEADER" -> "value-of-header"
  )
)

You can add these headers to your requests:

Header Use case
X-Algolia-UserToken Use API key rate limits
X-Algolia-UserToken The Analytics API uses the value of this header to distinguish between users. It takes priority over any value in X-Forwarded-For. Use the X-Algolia-UserToken header to forward the user’s identity without relying on IP addresses.
X-Forwarded-For Use for analytics in backend implementations. If your server sends the user’s IP address with every search, analytics can distinguish between users. Otherwise, the analytics uses the server’s IP address and considers all your users as a single user.
X-Forwarded-For Use for geolocation, when you perform searches from your backend. This ensures that the geolocation for a search uses your user’s IP address and not that of your server.
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$index = $client->initIndex('indexName');

$res = $index->search('query string', [
  'X-Algolia-UserToken' => 'user123'
]);

Make sure to use the same user token for your events (Insights API) and search requests (Search API).

  • If you send the authenticatedUserToken with your events, send the same value with your search requests.
  • If you send the userToken with your events, send the same value with your search requests.

Change timeouts for all requests

Network connections and DNS resolution can be slow. That’s why the API clients come with default timeouts.

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val configuration = AlgoliaClientConfiguration(
  httpConnectTimeoutMs = 2 * 1000, // connection timeout in milliseconds
  httpReadTimeoutMs = 2 * 1000, // read timeout in milliseconds
  httpRequestTimeoutMs = 2 * 1000, // write timeout in milliseconds
  dnsTimeoutMs = 2 * 100, // DNS connection timeout in milliseconds
  hostDownTimeoutMs = 5 * 60 * 1000 // delay before retrying a host we know was down, in milliseconds
)
new AlgoliaClient(applicationId, apiKey, configuration = configuration)

Don’t change the default timeouts without a good reason.

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$index = $client->initIndex('indexName');

$res = $index->search('query string', [
  // Set the readTimeout to 20 seconds
  'readTimeout' => 20
]);
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