Maxim Mironjuk
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March 15, 2026
As soon as a component needs to do more than receive data, actively sending to the server too, as with a live chat or collaborative editing, a unidirectional connection is no longer enough. WebSocket provides exactly that two-way channel, but it also comes with more responsibility: the connection has to be established at the right point in the Alpine lifecycle, incoming messages have to be reliably translated into reactive state, and the connection has to be properly closed again once the component is removed. This article walks through a solid base structure using two practical examples, a live chat and a live dashboard, including error handling for dropped connections and basic security considerations.