Aidbox SubSubscriptions

While Aidbox SubSubscriptions are stable and fully functional, they will no longer receive active development or new features. For enhanced capabilities and ongoing support, please use Aidbox topic-based subscriptions. This newer implementation offers improved performance, flexibility, and will continue to be developed to meet future needs.

Aidbox subscriptions module is a way to subscribe and get notifications about updating resources on the server. It is a common denominator of FHIR R4/R5 subscriptions specification with some extensions.

This module introduces two new resources into Aidbox:

• SubsSubscription — meta-resource which binds events (create/update/delete resource) with a communication channel through which subscriber is notified about changes.

• SubsNotification — resource which represents notification with its status (sent or not).

Aidbox doesn't delete SubsNotification resources by itself. The simple way to implement a retention policy is to create a cron job. Let us know if there is a more clear way.

See tutorial "Subscribe to new Patient resource"

Your service can register subscription by POST SubsSubscription resource:

POST /SubsSubscription
Accept: text/yaml
Content-Type: text/yaml

id: myservice-subs

status: active # 'active' is default, if 'off' - subscription is disabled
# Subscribe to all changes of Patient and Person resources
trigger:
  # resource type
  Patient: 
    event: ['all'] # can be all | create | update | delete
    # collection of filters
    filter:
    # use matcho engine to filter resources
    - matcho: { active: true }
  Person:
    event: ['all']

# how to deliver notifications
channel:
  type: rest-hook 
  # url to send hook
  endpoint: https://myservice/subs/patient
  # headers to add to request (for consistency use lowercase names)
  headers:
    Authorization: Bearer <......>
  # recomended timeout for web hook in ms, server may use it's own
  timeout:  1000
  payload:
    # this is default value, you can use id-only
    content: full-resource # full-resource | id-only
    # means aidbox format, or fhir+json to get resource in FHIR format
    contentType: json # json | fhir+json
   

Trigger format

Subscription.trigger is a key-value object, where key is resource type and each value can contain a collection of events (values can be 'all', 'create', 'update', 'delete') and .filter collection. For now filter support matcho engine (FHIRPath and FHIR Search filters are coming soon):

trigger:
 Encounter:
   filter:
     - matcho: { class: {code: 'inpatient'} }
     - matcho: { type: { coding: [{code: 'Sometype'}]}

Filter matches if at least one of item in the collection matches, i.e. collection has or semantic.

Protocol

After you registered subscription, Aidbox sends on channel.endpoint handshake notification in json format. It's good if your service responds with status: 200

POST https://myservice/subs/patient
Content-Type: application/json
... channel.headers ...

{
   "type": "handshake",
   "subscription": { ...SubsSubscription resource content... }
}

On every trigger event Aidbox will send a notification to your service endpoint. Your service has to respond with status: 200 and optional json body.

POST https://myservice/subs/patient
Content-Type: application/json
... channel.headers ...

{
   "id": <unique-id>,
   "type": "notification",
   "event": "create", # update | delete
   "resource":  {"resourceType": "Patient", ..... }
}

Results of all notifications are logged into SubsNotification resource:

GET /SubsNotification
Accept: text/yaml

---
id: <unique-id>
subscription: { id: 'myservice-subs', resourceType: SubsSubscription }
duration: 23 # hook duration in ms
status: success # fail
notification: <notification content>
response: <response content if present>

SubsSubscription/<id>/$handshake

You can force a handshake notification for the specific subscription with:

POST /SubsSubscription/<sub-id>/$handshake
Accept: text/yaml

# response

resourceType: SubsNotification
notification:
  type: handshake
  debug: true
  subscription: ...
subscription: {resourceType: SubsSubscription, id: <sub-id>}
duration: 1
status: failed
error: {message: Connection refused}

SubsSubscription/<id>/$debug

To debug subscription notifications, you can send debug messages with:

POST /SubsSubscription/<sub-id>/$debug
Accept: text/yaml
Content-Type: text/yaml

id: notif-id
event: create
type: notification
resource: 
  resourceType: Patient
  id: pt-1

# response

resourceType: SubsNotification
notification:
  type: notification
  resource: {id: pt-1, resourceType: Patient}
  debug: true
subscription: {resourceType: SubsSubscription, id: <sub-id>}
duration: 1
status: failed
error: {message: Connection refused}

SubsNotification/$notify (not implemented yet)

Or you can send a list of notifications by providing a list of search params:

POST /SubsNotification/$notify?_id=id-1,id-2,id-3

SubsNotification/<id>/$notify

You can resend the specific notification with

POST /SubsNotification/<notif-id>/$notify
Accept: text/yaml

# response

status: ...
duration: ...
notification: ....
response: ...

/subs/webhook (not implemented yet)

You can subscribe one instance of Aidbox to notifications from another instance and replicate data between boxes by using /subs/webhook/<source-id> endpoint:

POST /SubsSubscription
Accept: text/yaml
Content-Type: text/yaml

id: box-replication
status: active
trigger:
  Patient: { event: ['all'] }
channel:
  type: rest-hook
  endpoint: <other-box-url>/subs/webhook/box-1
  headers:
    Authorization: Bearer <token>