Message serialization

Out of the box, SignalR sends messages in plaintext JSON, but there is an alternative, which is MessagePack. It is a compressed format that can provide a better performance, especially for bigger payloads.

As mentioned earlier, we will need to install the @aspnet/signalr-protocol-msgpack npm package and the Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Protocols.MessagePack NuGet package.

An example, where we can specify the MessagePack protocol, would be as follows:

var connection = new signalR.HubConnectionBuilder()
    .withUrl('/chat')
    .withHubProtocol(new signalR.protocols.msgpack.
     MessagePackHubProtocol())
    .build();

If you chose to use MessagePack, you also need to add support for it when you register SignalR services:

services
    .AddSignalR()
    .AddMessagePackProtocol();

Now that we've seen how we can start a conversation, let's look at the SignalR context, where we can get information from...