specs.md

KNOW YOUR HTTP specs WELL

Core

concept/identifier	description	spec
HTTP Authentication	"This document defines HTTP/1.1 access control and authentication."	RFC7235
HTTP Caching	"HTTP is typically used for distributed information systems, where performance can be improved by the use of response caches."	RFC7234
HTTP Conditional Requests	"Conditional requests are HTTP requests that include one or more header fields indicating a precondition to be tested before applying the method semantics to the target resource."	RFC7232
HTTP Message Syntax and Routing	"The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level request/response protocol that uses extensible semantics and self-descriptive message payloads for flexible interaction with network-based hypertext information systems."	RFC7230
HTTP Range Requests	"Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) clients often encounter interrupted data transfers as a result of canceled requests or dropped connections."	RFC7233
HTTPbis security properties	"Recent IESG practice dictates that IETF protocols must specify mandatory-to-implement (MTI) security mechanisms, so that all conformant implementations share a common baseline. This document examines all widely deployed HTTP security technologies, and analyzes the trade-offs of each."	draft-ietf-httpbis-security-properties
HTTP Semantics and Content	"Each Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) message is either a request or a response."	RFC7231
OBSOLETE ~~HTTP~	"The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems."	RFC2616

Extensions

concept/identifier	description	spec
Content Security Policy	"This document defines a policy language used to declare a set of content restrictions for a web resource, and a mechanism for transmitting the policy from a server to a client where the policy is enforced."	CSP
Cookie	"This document specifies a way to create a stateful session with Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests and responses."	RFC6265, RFC2965, RFC2109
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing	"This document defines a mechanism to enable client-side cross-origin requests."	cors
HTTP Cache-Control Extensions for Stale Content	"This document defines two independent HTTP Cache-Control extensions that allow control over the use of stale responses by caches."	RFC5861
HTTP Signatures	"This document describes a way to add origin authentication, message integrity, and replay resistance to HTTP requests. It is intended to be used over the HTTPS protocol."	draft-cavage-http-signatures
HTTP client hints	"Client Hints can be used as input to proactive content negotiation; just as the Accept header allowed clients to indicate what formats they prefer, Client Hints allow clients to indicate a list of device and agent specific preferences."	draft-grigorik-http-client-hints
LCI	"This memo defines two new link types that indicate relationships between resources in terms of cache invalidation, along with a HTTP cache-control extension that takes advantage of those relationships to use them to extend response freshness. Collectively, this is referred to as Linked Cache Invalidation (LCI)."	draft-nottingham-linked-cache-inv
The Alternates Header Field	"This document proposes a header, Alternates, which is intended to provide a common method for Internet-based application protocols to indicate that a particular resource exists in multiple forms."	draft-ietf-http-alternates
The Key HTTP Response Header Field	"The 'Key' header field for HTTP responses allows an origin server to describe the cache key for a negotiated response: a short algorithm that can be used upon later requests to determine if the same response is reusable."	draft-fielding-http-key
Transparent Content Negotiation in HTTP	"Transparent content negotiation is an extensible negotiation mechanism, layered on top of HTTP, for automatically selecting the best version when the URL is accessed."	RFC2295

URI

concept/identifier	description	spec
Defining Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)	"This memo defines a path prefix for 'well-known locations', '/.well-known/', in selected Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) schemes."	RFC5785
URI template	"A URI Template is a compact sequence of characters for describing a range of Uniform Resource Identifiers through variable expansion."	RFC6570
URI	"A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) provides a simple and extensible means for identifying a resource."	RFC3986

Examples

concept/identifier	description	spec
A Uniform Resource Name (URN) Namespace for Examples	"This document defines a Uniform Resource Name (URN) namespace identifier enabling the generation of URNs that are appropriate for use in documentation and in URN-related testing and experimentation."	RFC6963
Example Media Types for Use in Documentation	"This document is registration for the 'example' media type and 'example' subtypes within the standards tree."	RFC4735
IPv4 Address Blocks Reserved for Documentation	"This document describes three IPv4 address blocks that are provided for use in documentation. "	RFC5737
Reserved Top Level DNS Names	"To reduce the likelihood of conflict and confusion, a few top level domain names are reserved for use in private testing, as examples in documentation, and the like. In addition, a few second level domain names reserved for use as examples are documented."	RFC2606

Standards for specifications

concept/identifier	description	spec
Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF	"The current specification documents ABNF. It balances compactness and simplicity with reasonable representational power."	RFC5234
Cosmogol: a language to describe finite state machines	"There is no standard way of describing such a machine, the most common way being an ASCII-art diagram. This document specifies another solution: a domain-specific language for finite state machines."	draft-bortzmeyer-language-state-machines