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Observability & Networking

Production HTTP Servers

Graceful shutdown, timeouts, middleware, and httprouter for reliable services.

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Server Setup

A production HTTP server needs more than http.ListenAndServe. It needs timeouts, graceful shutdown, structured logging, and health checks. The standard library provides all of these.

Goproduction-server-setup.go

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ReadTimeout prevents slow clients from holding connections. WriteTimeout prevents slow responses from consuming resources. IdleTimeout closes idle keep-alive connections. signal.NotifyContext handles SIGINT/SIGTERM.

Timeout Configuration

Timeouts protect your server from resource exhaustion. Every timeout has a purpose — set them based on your workload characteristics.

Gorequest-level-timeouts.go

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Request-level timeouts with context.WithTimeout are more precise than server-level timeouts. Different endpoints can have different timeouts. The context propagates the deadline through all nested calls.

Middleware Patterns

Middleware wraps handlers to add cross-cutting behavior. Logging, authentication, CORS, and rate limiting are common middleware.

Gomiddleware-chain.go

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Middleware wraps handlers in a chain. Each middleware calls next.ServeHTTP to pass the request to the next handler. statusWriter captures the response status code. context.WithValue passes data between middleware.

Graceful Shutdown

Graceful shutdown drains in-flight requests before stopping. This prevents data loss and ensures clean disconnections in Kubernetes.

Goshutdown-with-readiness-flip.go

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Flip readiness before starting shutdown. This tells Kubernetes to stop sending new traffic. Sleep briefly to let the endpoints propagate. Then drain in-flight requests with Shutdown. This prevents dropped connections.

Router Selection

The standard library ServeMux is sufficient for most services. For more features — path parameters, method matching, middleware chains — use a lightweight router.

Router	Use Case	Key Features
net/http ServeMux	Simple services	Standard library, no dependencies
chi	REST APIs	Express-like, middleware, URL params
httprouter	High performance	Minimal, used by gin
gin	Full-featured	Middleware, validation, JSON binding

Gochi-router-example.go

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chi provides Express-like routing with Go idioms. Middleware applies to all routes or specific groups. URL parameters use {param} syntax. The router is fast, extensible, and stdlib-compatible.

Production Checklist

Set ReadTimeout, WriteTimeout, and IdleTimeout
Implement graceful shutdown with signal handling
Add health check endpoints (/healthz, /readyz)
Use structured logging for request logging
Add request ID propagation for tracing
Set up metrics collection (request count, latency)
Configure TLS for external-facing services
Add rate limiting for public endpoints
Use context timeouts for downstream calls
Test shutdown behavior under load

Never use http.ListenAndServe in production

http.ListenAndServe does not set timeouts, does not handle graceful shutdown, and does not log errors properly. Always create http.Server explicitly with proper timeout and shutdown configuration.

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