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dexpot

HTTP boundary

Dexpot owns a small HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1 core. It applies bounded accumulation, deadlines, framing checks, routing, and overload shedding before application code runs.

Default limits

Section titled “Default limits”

Every connection starts with conservative defaults:

Limit Default
Request line 8 KiB
Request head 64 KiB
Header count 100
Request body 16 MiB
Idle read timeout 5 seconds
Absolute head deadline 10 seconds
Absolute body deadline 30 seconds

Override them as one immutable policy:

from dexpot import Dex, HttpLimits


app = Dex(
    limits=HttpLimits(
        request_line_bytes=4 * 1024,
        header_bytes=32 * 1024,
        header_count=64,
        body_bytes=2 * 1024 * 1024,
        idle_read_seconds=10.0,
        head_read_seconds=15.0,
        body_read_seconds=60.0,
    )
)

Values must be positive, and the total request-head allowance must exceed the request-line allowance. Oversized or timed-out requests receive a stable error and the connection closes.

Request framing

Section titled “Request framing”

Dexpot accepts validated Content-Length framing. Transfer encodings, including chunked request bodies, are rejected and the connection closes. Request targets must currently use origin form such as /path?query.

HEAD responses never include body bytes after parsing, including parser and handler errors. Automatic GET-to-HEAD routing is not provided. Requests with Expect are rejected with 417 and connection close before their body is read.

Request-head parser

Section titled “Request-head parser”

The pure-Python parser is the behavioral reference and fallback. The experimental dexpot-native extension implements the same request-line, header, Host, framing, and keep-alive semantics in Rust through PyO3.

Terminal window
DEXPOT_HTTP_PARSER=python dexpot serve main:app  # force Python
DEXPOT_HTTP_PARSER=native dexpot serve main:app  # require dexpot-native
DEXPOT_HTTP_PARSER=auto dexpot serve main:app    # compatible native or Python

The default auto mode falls back only when the native module is absent. ABI and initialization failures remain visible. native fails clearly when the extension is unavailable.