# HTTP/1.1

URL: /docs/protocols/http1/
Section: protocols
Tags: http, h11, httptools, protocol

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Overview HTTP/1.1 is Pounce's default and only required protocol. Two backends are available: Backend Type Install Best For h11 Pure Python Built-in Debugging, portability httptools C extension pounce[fast] Maximum throughput Pounce auto-detects httptools at import time. If installed, it's used automatically. h11 Backend The default backend. Pure Python, no compilation needed: import pounce # Uses h11 by default 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. httptools Backend For higher throughput, install the httptools extra: uv add "bengal-pounce[fast]" httptools wraps the Node.js HTTP parser (llhttp) in a Python C extension. It's significantly faster for parsing but adds a compiled dependency. 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_connection to limit requests per connection (0 = unlimited). Chunked Transfer Pounce handles chunked transfer encoding transparently. When your ASGI app sends multiple http.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 See Also HTTP/2 — Stream multiplexing and header compression ServerConfig — All configuration options

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