HTTP/1.1

Overview

HTTP/1.1 is Pounce's default and only required protocol. Two parsers are used depending on the worker mode:

Parser	Type	Worker	Speed
h11	Pure Python	Async workers	~22 µs/req
Built-in fast parser	Pure Python	Sync workers	~3 µs/req

The sync worker hot path automatically uses the fast built-in parser (_fast_h1.py) for simple request-response handling. Complex requests (chunked bodies, trailer headers) fall through to h11.

h11 Backend

The async worker parser. Pure Python, no compilation needed:

import pounce

pounce.run("myapp:app")

h11 is a state-machine-based HTTP/1.1 parser. It's well-tested, handles edge cases correctly, and is easy to debug.

Fast Built-in Parser

The sync worker hot path uses a custom parser that provides ~3 µs/req parsing with full safety checks:

Method validation (rejects unknown methods)
Header size limits (16 KB, prevents exhaustion)
Null byte and control character injection detection
Duplicate Content-Length detection (request smuggling prevention)
Content-Length + Transfer-Encoding conflict detection

Keep-Alive

Pounce reuses TCP connections between requests (HTTP/1.1 keep-alive). The timeout is configurable:

pounce.run("myapp:app", keep_alive_timeout=5.0)  # seconds

After the timeout, idle connections are closed. Set max_requests_per_connectionto limit requests per connection (0 = unlimited).

Chunked Transfer

Pounce handles chunked transfer encoding transparently. When your ASGI app sends multiplehttp.response.body events with more_body=True, Pounce uses chunked encoding automatically.

Limits

Setting	Default	Description
`max_request_size`	1 MB	Maximum request body size
`max_header_size`	64 KB	Maximum total header size
`max_headers`	100	Maximum number of headers
`h11_max_incomplete_event_size`	16 KB	h11 parser buffer limit