HTTP headers

developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers

HTTP headers let the client and the server pass additional information with an HTTP
request or response. An HTTP header consists of its case-insensitive name followed by a
colon ( : ), then by its value. Whitespace before the value is ignored.

Custom proprietary headers have historically been used with an X- prefix, but this
convention was deprecated in June 2012 because of the inconveniences it caused when
nonstandard fields became standard in RFC 6648; others are listed in an IANA registry,
whose original content was defined in RFC 4229. IANA also maintains a registry of
proposed new HTTP headers.

Headers can be grouped according to their contexts:

Request headers contain more information about the resource to be fetched, or

about the client requesting the resource.
Response headers hold additional information about the response, like its location
or about the server providing it.
Representation headers contain information about the body of the resource, like its
MIME type, or encoding/compression applied.
Payload headers contain representation-independent information about payload
data, including content length and the encoding used for transport.

Headers can also be grouped according to how proxies handle them:

Connection
Keep-Alive

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 Proxy-Authenticate
Proxy-Authorization
TE
Trailer
Transfer-Encoding
Upgrade (see also Protocol upgrade mechanism).

End-to-end headers
These headers must be transmitted to the final recipient of the message: the server for a
request, or the client for a response. Intermediate proxies must retransmit these headers
unmodified and caches must store them.

Hop-by-hop headers
These headers are meaningful only for a single transport-level connection, and must not
be retransmitted by proxies or cached. Note that only hop-by-hop headers may be set
using the Connection header.

Authentication
WWW-Authenticate
Defines the authentication method that should be used to access a resource.

Authorization
Contains the credentials to authenticate a user-agent with a server.

Proxy-Authenticate
Defines the authentication method that should be used to access a resource behind a
proxy server.

Proxy-Authorization
Contains the credentials to authenticate a user agent with a proxy server.

Caching
Age
The time, in seconds, that the object has been in a proxy cache.

Cache-Control
Directives for caching mechanisms in both requests and responses.

Clear-Site-Data
Clears browsing data (e.g. cookies, storage, cache) associated with the requesting
website.

Expires
The date/time after which the response is considered stale.

Pragma

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Implementation-specific header that may have various effects anywhere along the
request-response chain. Used for backwards compatibility with HTTP/1.0 caches where
the Cache-Control header is not yet present.

Warning Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.)

General warning information about possible problems.

Client hints
HTTP Client hints are a set of request headers that provide useful information about the
client such as device type and network conditions, and allow servers to optimize what is
served for those conditions.

Servers proactively requests the client hint headers they are interested in from the client
using Accept-CH. The client may then choose to include the requested headers in
subsequent requests.

Accept-CH Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)

Servers can advertise support for Client Hints using the Accept-CH header field or an
equivalent HTML <meta> element with http-equiv attribute.

Accept-CH-Lifetime Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.) Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.)
Servers can ask the client to remember the set of Client Hints that the server supports for
a specified period of time, to enable delivery of Client Hints on subsequent requests to
the server's origin.

The different categories of client hints are listed below.

User agent client hints

The UA client hints are request headers that provide information about the user agent
and the platform/architecture on which it is running:

Sec-CH-UA Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)

User agent's branding and version.

Sec-CH-UA-Arch Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
User agent's underlying platform architecture.

Sec-CH-UA-Bitness Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
User agent's underlying CPU architecture bitness (for example "64" bit).

Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.)

User agent's full semantic version string.

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Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version-List Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to
change in the future.)
Full version for each brand in the user agent's brand list.

Sec-CH-UA-Mobile Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
User agent is running on a mobile device or, more generally, prefers a "mobile" user
experience.

Sec-CH-UA-Model Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
User agent's device model.

Sec-CH-UA-Platform Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
User agent's underlying operation system/platform.

Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to

change in the future.)
User agent's underlying operation system version.

Device client hints

Content-DPR Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.) Experimental
(Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)
Response header used to confirm the image device to pixel ratio in requests where the
DPR client hint was used to select an image resource.

Device-Memory Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.) Experimental

(Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)
Approximate amount of available client RAM memory. This is part of the Device Memory
API.

DPR Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.) Experimental

(Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)
Client device pixel ratio (DPR), which is the number of physical device pixels
corresponding to every CSS pixel.

Viewport-Width Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.)

Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)
A number that indicates the layout viewport width in CSS pixels. The provided pixel value
is a number rounded to the smallest following integer (i.e. ceiling value).

Width Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.) Experimental

(Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)
A number that indicates the desired resource width in physical pixels (i.e. intrinsic size of
an image).

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Network client hints

Network client hints allow a server to choose what information is sent based on the user
choice and network bandwidth and latency.

Downlink
Approximate bandwidth of the client's connection to the server, in Mbps. This is part of the
Network Information API.

ECT
The effective connection type ("network profile") that best matches the connection's
latency and bandwidth. This is part of the Network Information API.

RTT
Application layer round trip time (RTT) in milliseconds, which includes the server
processing time. This is part of the Network Information API.

Save-Data Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)

A boolean that indicates the user agent's preference for reduced data usage.

Conditionals
Last-Modified
The last modification date of the resource, used to compare several versions of the same
resource. It is less accurate than ETag, but easier to calculate in some environments.
Conditional requests using If-Modified-Since and If-Unmodified-Since use this
value to change the behavior of the request.

ETag
A unique string identifying the version of the resource. Conditional requests using If-
Match and If-None-Match use this value to change the behavior of the request.

If-Match
Makes the request conditional, and applies the method only if the stored resource
matches one of the given ETags.

If-None-Match
Makes the request conditional, and applies the method only if the stored resource doesn't
match any of the given ETags. This is used to update caches (for safe requests), or to
prevent uploading a new resource when one already exists.

If-Modified-Since
Makes the request conditional, and expects the resource to be transmitted only if it has
been modified after the given date. This is used to transmit data only when the cache is
out of date.

If-Unmodified-Since

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Makes the request conditional, and expects the resource to be transmitted only if it has
not been modified after the given date. This ensures the coherence of a new fragment of
a specific range with previous ones, or to implement an optimistic concurrency control
system when modifying existing documents.

Vary
Determines how to match request headers to decide whether a cached response can be
used rather than requesting a fresh one from the origin server.

Connection management
Connection
Controls whether the network connection stays open after the current transaction finishes.

Keep-Alive
Controls how long a persistent connection should stay open.

Content negotiation
Content negotiation headers.

Accept
Informs the server about the types of data that can be sent back.

Accept-Encoding
The encoding algorithm, usually a compression algorithm, that can be used on the
resource sent back.

Accept-Language
Informs the server about the human language the server is expected to send back. This is
a hint and is not necessarily under the full control of the user: the server should always
pay attention not to override an explicit user choice (like selecting a language from a
dropdown).

Controls
Expect
Indicates expectations that need to be fulfilled by the server to properly handle the
request.

Max-Forwards
TBD

Cookies
Cookie
Contains stored HTTP cookies previously sent by the server with the Set-Cookie header.

Set-Cookie

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Send cookies from the server to the user-agent.

CORS
Learn more about CORS here.

Access-Control-Allow-Origin
Indicates whether the response can be shared.

Access-Control-Allow-Credentials
Indicates whether the response to the request can be exposed when the credentials flag
is true.

Access-Control-Allow-Headers
Used in response to a preflight request to indicate which HTTP headers can be used
when making the actual request.

Access-Control-Allow-Methods
Specifies the methods allowed when accessing the resource in response to a preflight
request.

Access-Control-Expose-Headers
Indicates which headers can be exposed as part of the response by listing their names.

Access-Control-Max-Age
Indicates how long the results of a preflight request can be cached.

Access-Control-Request-Headers
Used when issuing a preflight request to let the server know which HTTP headers will be
used when the actual request is made.

Access-Control-Request-Method
Used when issuing a preflight request to let the server know which HTTP method will be
used when the actual request is made.

Origin
Indicates where a fetch originates from.

Timing-Allow-Origin
Specifies origins that are allowed to see values of attributes retrieved via features of the
Resource Timing API, which would otherwise be reported as zero due to cross-origin
restrictions.

Downloads
Content-Disposition
Indicates if the resource transmitted should be displayed inline (default behavior without
the header), or if it should be handled like a download and the browser should present a
"Save As" dialog.

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Message body information
Content-Length
The size of the resource, in decimal number of bytes.

Content-Type
Indicates the media type of the resource.

Content-Encoding
Used to specify the compression algorithm.

Content-Language
Describes the human language(s) intended for the audience, so that it allows a user to
differentiate according to the users' own preferred language.

Content-Location
Indicates an alternate location for the returned data.

Proxies
Forwarded
Contains information from the client-facing side of proxy servers that is altered or lost
when a proxy is involved in the path of the request.

X-Forwarded-For Non-Standard (Non-standard. Check cross-browser support

before using.)
Identifies the originating IP addresses of a client connecting to a web server through an
HTTP proxy or a load balancer.

X-Forwarded-Host Non-Standard (Non-standard. Check cross-browser support

before using.)
Identifies the original host requested that a client used to connect to your proxy or load
balancer.

X-Forwarded-Proto Non-Standard (Non-standard. Check cross-browser support

before using.)
Identifies the protocol (HTTP or HTTPS) that a client used to connect to your proxy or
load balancer.

Via
Added by proxies, both forward and reverse proxies, and can appear in the request
headers and the response headers.

Redirects
Location
Indicates the URL to redirect a page to.

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Request context
From
Contains an Internet email address for a human user who controls the requesting user
agent.

Host
Specifies the domain name of the server (for virtual hosting), and (optionally) the TCP
port number on which the server is listening.

Referer
The address of the previous web page from which a link to the currently requested page
was followed.

Referrer-Policy
Governs which referrer information sent in the Referer header should be included with
requests made.

User-Agent
Contains a characteristic string that allows the network protocol peers to identify the
application type, operating system, software vendor or software version of the requesting
software user agent. See also the Firefox user agent string reference.

Response context
Allow
Lists the set of HTTP request methods supported by a resource.

Server
Contains information about the software used by the origin server to handle the request.

Range requests
Accept-Ranges
Indicates if the server supports range requests, and if so in which unit the range can be
expressed.

Range
Indicates the part of a document that the server should return.

If-Range
Creates a conditional range request that is only fulfilled if the given etag or date matches
the remote resource. Used to prevent downloading two ranges from incompatible version
of the resource.

Content-Range
Indicates where in a full body message a partial message belongs.

Security

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Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy (COEP)
Allows a server to declare an embedder policy for a given document.

Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy (COOP)
Prevents other domains from opening/controlling a window.

Cross-Origin-Resource-Policy (CORP)
Prevents other domains from reading the response of the resources to which this header
is applied.

Content-Security-Policy (CSP)
Controls resources the user agent is allowed to load for a given page.

Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only
Allows web developers to experiment with policies by monitoring, but not enforcing, their
effects. These violation reports consist of JSON documents sent via an HTTP POST
request to the specified URI.

Expect-CT
Allows sites to opt in to reporting and/or enforcement of Certificate Transparency
requirements, which prevents the use of misissued certificates for that site from going
unnoticed. When a site enables the Expect-CT header, they are requesting that Chrome
check that any certificate for that site appears in public CT logs.

Feature-Policy
Provides a mechanism to allow and deny the use of browser features in its own frame,
and in iframes that it embeds.

Origin-Isolation Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
Provides a mechanism to allow web applications to isolate their origins.

Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS)
Force communication using HTTPS instead of HTTP.

Upgrade-Insecure-Requests
Sends a signal to the server expressing the client's preference for an encrypted and
authenticated response, and that it can successfully handle the upgrade-insecure-
requests directive.

X-Content-Type-Options
Disables MIME sniffing and forces browser to use the type given in Content-Type.

X-Download-Options
The X-Download-Options HTTP header indicates that the browser (Internet Explorer)
should not display the option to "Open" a file that has been downloaded from an
application, to prevent phishing attacks as the file otherwise would gain access to execute
in the context of the application.

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X-Frame-Options (XFO)
Indicates whether a browser should be allowed to render a page in a <frame>, <iframe>,
<embed> or <object>.

X-Permitted-Cross-Domain-Policies
Specifies if a cross-domain policy file ( crossdomain.xml ) is allowed. The file may
define a policy to grant clients, such as Adobe's Flash Player (now obsolete), Adobe
Acrobat, Microsoft Silverlight (now obsolete), or Apache Flex, permission to handle data
across domains that would otherwise be restricted due to the Same-Origin Policy. See
the Cross-domain Policy File Specification for more information.

X-Powered-By
May be set by hosting environments or other frameworks and contains information about
them while not providing any usefulness to the application or its visitors. Unset this
header to avoid exposing potential vulnerabilities.

X-XSS-Protection
Enables cross-site scripting filtering.

Fetch metadata request headers

Fetch metadata request headers provides information about the context from which the
request originated. This allows a server to make decisions about whether a request
should be allowed based on where the request came from and how the resource will be
used.

Sec-Fetch-Site
It is a request header that indicates the relationship between a request initiator's origin
and its target's origin. It is a Structured Header whose value is a token with possible
values cross-site , same-origin , same-site , and none .

Sec-Fetch-Mode
It is a request header that indicates the request's mode to a server. It is a Structured
Header whose value is a token with possible values cors , navigate , no-cors ,
same-origin , and websocket .

Sec-Fetch-User
It is a request header that indicates whether or not a navigation request was triggered by
user activation. It is a Structured Header whose value is a boolean so possible values are
?0 for false and ?1 for true.

Sec-Fetch-Dest
It is a request header that indicates the request's destination to a server. It is a Structured
Header whose value is a token with possible values audio , audioworklet ,
document , embed , empty , font , image , manifest , object , paintworklet ,
report , script , serviceworker , sharedworker , style , track , video ,
worker , and xslt .

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Service-Worker-Navigation-Preload
A request header sent in preemptive request to fetch() a resource during service worker
boot. The value, which is set with NavigationPreloadManager.setHeaderValue(), can
be used to inform a server that a different resource should be returned than in a normal
fetch() operation.

Server-sent events
Last-Event-ID
TBD

NEL Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)

Defines a mechanism that enables developers to declare a network error reporting policy.

Ping-From
TBD

Ping-To
TBD

Report-To
Used to specify a server endpoint for the browser to send warning and error reports to.

Transfer coding
Transfer-Encoding
Specifies the form of encoding used to safely transfer the resource to the user.

TE
Specifies the transfer encodings the user agent is willing to accept.

Trailer
Allows the sender to include additional fields at the end of chunked message.

Other
Accept-Push-Policy Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the
future.)
A client can express the desired push policy for a request by sending an Accept-Push-
Policy header field in the request.

Accept-Signature Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
A client can send the Accept-Signature header field to indicate intention to take
advantage of any available signatures and to indicate what kinds of signatures it
supports.

Alt-Svc
Used to list alternate ways to reach this service.

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Date
Contains the date and time at which the message was originated.

Early-Data Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)

Indicates that the request has been conveyed in TLS early data.

Large-Allocation Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.)

Tells the browser that the page being loaded is going to want to perform a large
allocation.

Link
The Link entity-header field provides a means for serializing one or more links in HTTP
headers. It is semantically equivalent to the HTML <link> element.

Push-Policy Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)

A Push-Policy defines the server behavior regarding push when processing a request.

Retry-After
Indicates how long the user agent should wait before making a follow-up request.

Signature Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.)

The Signature header field conveys a list of signatures for an exchange, each one
accompanied by information about how to determine the authority of and refresh that
signature.

Signed-Headers Experimental (Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the

future.)
The Signed-Headers header field identifies an ordered list of response header fields to
include in a signature.

Server-Timing
Communicates one or more metrics and descriptions for the given request-response
cycle.

Service-Worker-Allowed
Used to remove the path restriction by including this header in the response of the
Service Worker script.

SourceMap
Links generated code to a source map.

Upgrade
The relevant RFC document for the Upgrade header field is RFC 7230, section 6.7. The
standard establishes rules for upgrading or changing to a different protocol on the current
client, server, transport protocol connection. For example, this header standard allows a
client to change from HTTP 1.1 to HTTP 2.0, assuming the server decides to
acknowledge and implement the Upgrade header field. Neither party is required to accept
the terms specified in the Upgrade header field. It can be used in both client and server

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headers. If the Upgrade header field is specified, then the sender MUST also send the
Connection header field with the upgrade option specified. For details on the Connection
header field please see section 6.1 of the aforementioned RFC.

X-DNS-Prefetch-Control
Controls DNS prefetching, a feature by which browsers proactively perform domain name
resolution on both links that the user may choose to follow as well as URLs for items
referenced by the document, including images, CSS, JavaScript, and so forth.

X-Firefox-Spdy Deprecated (Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.) Non-

Standard (Non-standard. Check cross-browser support before using.)
TBD

X-Pingback Non-Standard (Non-standard. Check cross-browser support before

using.)
TBD

X-Requested-With
TBD

X-Robots-Tag Non-Standard (Non-standard. Check cross-browser support before

using.)
The X-Robots-Tag HTTP header is used to indicate how a web page is to be indexed
within public search engine results. The header is effectively equivalent to <meta
name="robots" content="…"> .

X-UA-Compatible Non-Standard (Non-standard. Check cross-browser support

before using.)
Used by Internet Explorer to signal which document mode to use.

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Last modified: Jul 21, 2022, by MDN contributors

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