mirror of
https://github.com/kennethreitz/kennethreitz.org.git
synced 2026-06-05 22:50:17 +00:00
53 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
2.0 KiB
Markdown
# Responder: A Familiar HTTP Service Framework
|
|
|
|
Responder is a web framework for Python that flips [Requests](/software/requests) inside out. If Requests is how you consume HTTP, Responder is how you serve it, using the same mental model.
|
|
|
|
$ uv pip install responder
|
|
|
|
## What It Looks Like
|
|
|
|
```python
|
|
import responder
|
|
|
|
api = responder.API()
|
|
|
|
@api.route("/")
|
|
def home(req, resp):
|
|
resp.html = "<h1>Hello, world.</h1>"
|
|
|
|
@api.route("/api/data")
|
|
def data(req, resp):
|
|
resp.media = {"message": "Hello from Responder", "status": "ok"}
|
|
|
|
@api.route("/greet/{name}")
|
|
async def greet(req, resp, *, name):
|
|
resp.text = f"Hello, {name}!"
|
|
|
|
if __name__ == "__main__":
|
|
api.run()
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
`resp.text` sends text. `resp.html` sends HTML. `resp.media` sends JSON. `req.headers` is a case-insensitive dict, just like in Requests. The `async` keyword is optional. If you know Requests, you already know half of Responder.
|
|
|
|
## The Idea
|
|
|
|
I wanted to take the API primitives from Requests and put them into a web framework. The niceties of Flask and the performance philosophy of Falcon, unified with a Requests-like interface for responses. Setting `resp.content` sends bytes. Setting `resp.media` sends JSON. Case-insensitive headers. Familiar status codes.
|
|
|
|
It was a bit ahead of its time. Some of these ideas, like automatic async handling and type-aware serialization, showed up later in FastAPI, which I'd recommend for production use today. Responder was always more of an experiment in API design than a production framework. But as an exercise in "what if the server-side felt like the client-side?" I think it holds up.
|
|
|
|
## Install
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
$ uv pip install responder
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
## Resources
|
|
|
|
- [Documentation](https://responder.kennethreitz.org)
|
|
- [Source Code on GitHub](https://github.com/kennethreitz/responder)
|
|
|
|
## Related
|
|
|
|
- [**Requests**](/software/requests) — The client-side library whose philosophy Responder mirrors.
|
|
- [**From HTTP to Consciousness**](/essays/2025-08-27-from_http_to_consciousness) — The design thinking behind both libraries.
|