Channels

Surge implements the three Pusher channel types. Which one you get is decided by the channel name prefix — exactly as Pusher and Echo expect.

Prefix	Type	Authorized?	Membership
(none)	Public	No	—
private-	Private	Yes	—
private-encrypted-	Private	Yes	—
presence-	Presence	Yes	Yes

Public channels

No authorization. Anyone who can reach the server can subscribe.

Echo.channel('orders').listen('OrderShipped', (e) => { /* ... */ })

Under the hood the client sends pusher:subscribe with the channel name, and Surge replies pusher_internal:subscription_succeeded.

Private channels

Private channels require a signed token. With Laravel + Echo you don't write any of this by hand — Echo.private('orders.1') calls your /broadcasting/auth endpoint, Laravel signs the subscription, and Surge verifies it.

Authorize the channel in routes/channels.php as usual:

Broadcast::channel('orders.{orderId}', function ($user, $orderId) {
    return $user->id === Order::find($orderId)->user_id;
});

Echo.private('orders.1').listen('OrderShipped', (e) => { /* ... */ })

Surge verifies the token ({app_key}:{hmac_sha256("{socket_id}:{channel}", app_secret)}) in constant time. A bad signature gets a pusher:subscription_error, never a silent pass.

Presence channels

Presence channels are private channels that also track who is subscribed. The signed channel_data carries a user_id and arbitrary user_info.

Broadcast::channel('room.{roomId}', function ($user, $roomId) {
    // Returning an array joins the presence set.
    return ['id' => $user->id, 'name' => $user->name];
});

Echo.join('room.42')
  .here((members) => console.log('present:', members))
  .joining((member) => console.log('joined:', member))
  .leaving((member) => console.log('left:', member))

Surge sends:

• pusher_internal:subscription_succeeded to the joining client, with the full roster: { presence: { ids, hash, count } }.
• pusher_internal:member_added to everyone else — once per user_id, so a user with two tabs doesn't appear twice.
• pusher_internal:member_removed when a user's last connection leaves.

Cross-node presence

With Redis scaling enabled, presence works across nodes: joins/leaves propagate to subscribers on every node and rosters include members from the whole cluster. It's eventually consistent — see Presence across nodes.

Next: Client events.