Planning a request

This section explains how to build and send a trip planning request to the Travel Planner API using WebSocket and Protocol Buffers.
The goal is to send a PlanRequest message, encoded in binary, over the live WebSocket connection.

Step 1 - Define Schema

Use the provided Protobuf definition requestProto from your SDK to generate the message type.

Base endpoint

const reqRoot = protobuf.parse(requestProto).root;
const PlanRequest = reqRoot.lookupType('planner.PlanRequest');

Step 2 - Create an object

You’ll now build the payload that matches the Protobuf schema.

request.js

const requestObject = {
    fromPlace: '52.3702,4.8952', // Amsterdam
    toPlace: '52.0907,5.1214', // Utrecht
    timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
    arriveBy: false,
    userPreferences: {
        walkingSpeed: 1, // AVERAGE
        bikingSpeed: 1, // AVERAGE
        hasEbike: false
    }
};

Step 3 - Validate & encode

Validation ensures that your request matches the schema before sending it to the server.

main.js

const err = PlanRequest.verify(reqObj);
if (err) throw new Error(err);
const binReq = PlanRequest.encode(PlanRequest.create(reqObj)).finish();

• verify checks for missing or invalid fields.
• create constructs an internal Protobuf message instance.
• encode.finish() serializes the message into a binary Uint8Array.

This binary array is what the WebSocket expects. If you print binReq.length, you’ll see the compact size compared to an equivalent JSON payload.

Step 4 - Connect & Send via WebSocket

Once encoded, you can send the message directly over the open WebSocket connection.

main.js

import WebSocket from 'ws';

// Define endpoint
const url = 'wss://api.planner.moopmoop.com/ws/plannermixer/proto';

// Create WebSocket connection with proper headers
const ws = new WebSocket(url, {
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/protobuf' }
});

// Handle connection open event
ws.on('open', () => {
  console.log(`[open] Connected to Travel Planner API`);
  console.log(`[send] Sending PlanRequest (${binReq.length} bytes)`);
  ws.send(binReq, { binary: true });
});

// Handle incoming messages
ws.on('message', (data) => {
  console.log(`[message] Received ${data.byteLength} bytes`);
  // You can decode responses here with your PlanResult Protobuf schema
});

// Handle errors and closure
ws.on('error', (err) => console.error('[error]', err));
ws.on('close', () => console.log('[close] Connection closed'));

You can send multiple PlanRequest in a single connection — for example, when a user changes their destination or adjusts preferences. The server will respond with new PlanResult messages streamed asynchronously.