Stream tokens from LLM APIs using Server-Sent Events to deliver responsive UX without waiting for full generation to complete.
Five passes over the same idea, each from a different angle. Do them in order, or jump to whichever you need.
Streaming is the difference between a ChatGPT-like experience and a spinner that blocks the user for 10 seconds. LLMs generate token-by-token — streaming sends each token as it is produced over SSE or WebSockets. The engineering challenge is backpressure, partial JSON parsing, abort handling, and reconnection logic at scale.
