Please note that this version of the site is no longer being updated. All content has been merged with my IT Blog "Much Ado About IT". Click here to see this page on the other site. I've found that using Jekyll to be too fragile and complex. GitHub pages are too limited. The blog site was on WordPress (self-hosted) but that was too slow and clunky. The revamped blog now uses Hugo and is published using Netlify

Understanding the Node-RED Runtime API

Node-RED exposes an extensive API at runtime. While most of this is _not_ available within your flows, much of it _is_ available to custom nodes. Unfortunately, documentation for the API lags behind development. This page documents some of the key things I've learned about the API, what it does and how it works.

The official API documentation is here in the Node-RED docs.

The API is accessed via the RED object.

Available in Function Nodes

RED.util.xxxx

Available in Custom Nodes

RED.util.

RED.util.cloneMessage(msg)

See: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/node-red/RED.util/node-red/dOrpj2S_hi0/X0LthFt0BAAJ “For a variety of reasons, you cannot use the JSON.stringfy/parse trick on messages that originate from the HTTP In node.”