# Request (`req`) Sails is built on [Express](https://github.com/balderdashy/sails/blob/master/docs/PAGE_NEEDED.md), and uses [Node's HTTP server](http://nodejs.org/api/http.html) conventions. Because of this, you can access all of the Node and Express methods and properties on the `req` object wherever it is accessible (in your controllers, policies, and custom responses). A nice side effect of this compatibility is that, in many cases, you can paste existing Node.js code into a Sails app and it will work. And since Sails implements a transport-agnostic request interpreter, the code in your Sails app is WebSocket-compatible as well. Sails adds a few methods and properties of its own to the `req` object, like [`req.wantsJSON`](https://sailsjs.com/documentation/reference/request-req/req-wants-json) and [`req.allParams()`](https://sailsjs.com/documentation/reference/request-req/req-all-params). These features are syntactic sugar on top of the underlying implementation, and also support both HTTP and WebSockets.