Use Redis in Cloudflare Workers

This tutorial showcases using Redis with REST API in Cloudflare Workers.

This tutorial showcases using Redis with REST API in Cloudflare Workers. We will write a sample edge function (Cloudflare Workers) which will show a custom greeting depending on the location of the client. We will load the greeting message from Redis so you can update it without touching the code.

See the code.

Why Upstash?

• Cloudflare Workers does not allow TCP connections. Upstash provides REST API on top of the Redis database.
• Upstash is a serverless offering with per-request pricing which fits for edge and serverless functions.
• Upstash Global database provides low latency all over the world.

Step-1: Create Redis Database

Create a free Global database from Upstash Console. Find your REST URL and token in the database details page in the console. Copy them.

Connect your database with redis-cli and add some greetings

usw1-selected-termite-30690.upstash.io:30690> set GB "Ey up?"
OK
usw1-selected-termite-30690.upstash.io:30690> set US "Yo, what’s up?"
OK
usw1-selected-termite-30690.upstash.io:30690> set TR "Naber dostum?"
OK
usw1-selected-termite-30690.upstash.io:30690> set DE "Was ist los?"

Step-2: Edge Function

The best way to work with Cloudflare Workers is to use Wrangler. After installing and configuring wrangler, create a folder for your project inside the folder run: wrangler init

Choose yes to create package.json, no to typescript and yes to create a worker in src/index.js.

It will create wrangler.toml, package.json and src/index.js.

Append the Upstash REST URL and token to the toml as below:

# wrangler.toml

# existing config

[vars]
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN = "AX_sASQgODM5ZjExZGEtMmI3Mi00Mjcwk3NDIxMmEwNmNkYjVmOGVmZTk5MzQ="
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL = "https://us1-merry-macaque-31458.upstash.io/"

Install upstash-redis: npm install @upstash/redis

Replace src/index.js with the following:

// src/index.js

import { Redis } from "@upstash/redis/cloudflare";

export default {
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const redis = Redis.fromEnv(env);

    const country = request.headers.get("cf-ipcountry");
    if (country) {
      const greeting = await redis.get(country);
      if (greeting) {
        return new Response(greeting);
      }
    }

    return new Response("Hello!");
  },
};

The code tries to find out the user’s location checking the “cf-ipcountry” header. Then it loads the correct greeting for that location using the Redis REST API.

Run locally

Run wrangler dev and open your browser at localhost:8787.

Build and Deploy

Build and deploy your app to Cloudflare by running: wrangler publish

The url of your app will be logged: https://using-cloudflare-workers.upstash.workers.dev/

Typescript example

We also have a typescript example, available here.