Realtime dashboards with Beacon

Publish dashboard updates with Beacon

A dashboard is more useful when people see new information as it arrives. Beacon gives your Unbroker application managed realtime pub/sub, so you can focus on the events and views your users need.

Use it for live metrics, activity feeds and notifications. The official JavaScript and TypeScript SDK works in browsers and Node.js, letting you connect the frontend and backend through named channels.

Build around your application’s permissions

Authorize each subscription

Keep the signing secret on your backend and issue short-lived client tokens. Scope permissions to the user’s channels, such as an organization’s metrics or a person’s notifications.

Publish from the right service

Save the authoritative change in the database, then publish a notification to the relevant channel. A read-only dashboard can receive updates without getting permission to publish them.

Keep realtime and durable data together

Host the frontend and API on Unbroker and use PostgreSQL for records that must survive a disconnection. Beacon carries the update; the API supplies the authoritative state.

The SDK handles reconnects and restores subscriptions. Messages missed while disconnected are not replayed, so a dashboard should refetch current state after reconnecting. This keeps recovery behavior explicit and the user interface accurate.

Integration tutorial

The tutorial connects a browser client, retrieves an authenticated token and refreshes a metrics view when updates arrive. It includes a reconnect check and an authorization check, so you can validate the experience before expanding it to more channels.