Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

aid: communication-protocols:http
name: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
description: The application layer protocol that powers the World Wide Web and the majority of REST and
  HTTP APIs. HTTP/1.1 is defined in RFC 9110-9114, HTTP/2 in RFC 9113, and HTTP/3 in RFC 9114, the latter
  running over QUIC. HTTP defines methods, status codes, headers, content negotiation, caching, and conditional
  requests that underpin modern web APIs.
humanURL: https://httpwg.org/specs/
baseURL: https://httpwg.org
tags:
- Application Protocol
- HTTP
- IETF
- REST
- Web
properties:
- type: Specification
  url: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110
- type: Specification
  url: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9112
- type: Specification
  url: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9113
- type: Specification
  url: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9114
- type: Working Group
  url: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/about/
x-features:
- Stateless request/response model
- Methods, status codes, headers, content negotiation
- HTTP/2 multiplexing and HPACK header compression
- HTTP/3 over QUIC for low-latency, head-of-line-free transport
- Strong caching semantics with conditional requests
x-useCases:
- REST and resource-oriented APIs
- GraphQL and gRPC-Web transport
- Webhook delivery
- Browser-to-API communication