SUBSCRIBE(3valkey)

💖 SUBSCRIBE (3valkey) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the valkey command manual — this one's all about subscribe, and it's literally the glow-up your pub/sub era needed ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

subscribe — the command that just sits there and listens. It's giving "I'm not texting first, I'm just waiting for messages to come to me" energy 🎧💅

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

SUBSCRIBE channel [channel...]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So basically, this command subscribes your client to the channels you name. You pass in one channel, or a whole lil squad of them, and now you're on the list. Subscribed. Locked in. 🔒

Once your client enters the subscribed state, it is not supposed to issue any other commands. Like, at all. Not me being dramatic, that's just the rules 🙈. The only exceptions are:

• more SUBSCRIBE
• SSUBSCRIBE (see valkey-ssubscribe(7))
• PSUBSCRIBE (see valkey-psubscribe(7))
• UNSUBSCRIBE (see valkey-unsubscribe(7))
• SUNSUBSCRIBE (see valkey-sunsubscribe(7))
• PUNSUBSCRIBE (see valkey-punsubscribe(7))
• PING (see valkey-ping(7))
• RESET (see valkey-reset(7))
• and QUIT (see valkey-quit(7))

That's the whole guest list. Nothing else gets in while you're in subscribed state. periodt. 💀

BUT — and this is the plot twist — if you're using RESP3 (peep valkey-hello(7) HELLO), then a client can actually issue any commands while in subscribed state. Main character privilege, honestly 👑

Also good to know: you can call valkey-reset(7) RESET to exit the subscribed state. Escape hatch unlocked 🚪✨

For the full lore, go read valkey-pubsub(7) Pub/sub. It's the extended universe 🫶

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💌 REPLY 💌

When it works, this command doesn't return anything in the normal sense. Instead, for each channel, one message gets pushed — and the first element of that message is the string subscribe. That's your confirmation that the command succeeded. It's like a little "delivered ✅" receipt, one per channel.

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🔥 COMPLEXITY 🔥

O(N) — where N is the number of channels you're subscribing to. More channels, more work. Math is math 🤷‍♀️

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🌈 ACL CATEGORIES 🌈

• @pubsub
• @slow

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⭐ HISTORY ⭐

• Available since: 2.0.0 — an icon from the very beginning, no cap 💜

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

• psubscribe(3valkey)
• publish(3valkey)
• pubsub(3valkey)
• pubsub-channels(3valkey)
• pubsub-help(3valkey)
• pubsub-numpat(3valkey)
• pubsub-numsub(3valkey)
• pubsub-shardchannels(3valkey)
• pubsub-shardnumsub(3valkey)
• punsubscribe(3valkey)
• spublish(3valkey)
• ssubscribe(3valkey)
• sunsubscribe(3valkey)
• unsubscribe(3valkey)

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okay that's the whole page bestie, mwah 💋 this was version 9.0.0, dated 2025-10-21 — go subscribe to something and slay 🌸🦋💖