HTTP Methods

Auto-endpoints

The default behavior is to automatically generate HEAD endpoints for all GET routes, and OPTIONS endpoints for all routes. Additionally, there is the option to automatically generate TRACE endpoints. However, these are not enabled by default.

• Configuration: AUTO_HEAD (default True)
• MDN: Read more (opens new window)

A HEAD request provides the headers and an otherwise identical response to what a GET request would provide. However, it does not actually return the body.

@app.get("/")
async def hello_world(request):
    return text("Hello, world.")

Given the above route definition, Sanic Extensions will enable HEAD responses, as seen here.

$ curl localhost:8000 --head
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
access-control-allow-origin: *
content-length: 13
connection: keep-alive
content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

• Configuration: AUTO_OPTIONS (default True)
• MDN: Read more (opens new window)

OPTIONS requests provide the recipient with details about how the client is allowed to communicate with a given endpoint.

@app.get("/")
async def hello_world(request):
    return text("Hello, world.")

Given the above route definition, Sanic Extensions will enable OPTIONS responses, as seen here.

It is important to note that we also see access-control-allow-origins in this example. This is because the CORS protection is enabled by default.

$ curl localhost:8000 -X OPTIONS -i
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
allow: GET,HEAD,OPTIONS
access-control-allow-origin: *
connection: keep-alive

Even though Sanic Extensions will setup these routes for you automatically, if you decide to manually create

an @app.options route, it will not be overridden.

• Configuration: AUTO_TRACE (default False)
• MDN: Read more (opens new window)

By default, TRACE endpoints will not be automatically created. However, Sanic Extensions will allow you to create them if you wanted. This is something that is not allowed in vanilla Sanic.

@app.route("/", methods=["trace"])
async def handler(request):
    ...

To enable auto-creation of these endpoints, you must first enable them when extending Sanic.

from sanic_ext import Extend, Config
app.extend(config=Config(http_auto_trace=True))

Now, assuming you have some endpoints setup, you can trace them as shown here:

$ curl localhost:8000 -X TRACE
TRACE / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:9999
User-Agent: curl/7.76.1
Accept: */*

Setting up `AUTO_TRACE` can be super helpful, especially when your application is deployed behind a proxy since

it will help you determine how the proxy is behaving.

Additional method support

Vanilla Sanic allows you to build endpoints with the following HTTP methods:

• GET
• POST
• PUT
• HEAD
• OPTIONS
• PATCH
• DELETE

See MDN Web Docs (opens new window) for more.

There are, however, two more "standard" HTTP methods: TRACE and CONNECT. Sanic Extensions will allow you to build endpoints using these methods, which would otherwise not be allowed.

It is worth pointing out that this will NOT enable convenience methods: @app.trace or @app.connect. You need to use @app.route as shown in the example here.

@app.route("/", methods=["trace", "connect"])
async def handler(_):
    return empty()