Documentation

HTTP (The Gem! a.k.a. http.rb) is an easy-to-use client library for making requests from Ruby. It uses a simple method chaining system for building requests, similar to Python's Requests.

Under the hood, http.rb uses the llhttp parser, a fast HTTP parsing native extension. This library isn't just yet another wrapper around Net::HTTP. It implements the HTTP protocol natively and outsources the parsing to native extensions.

• Clean API: http.rb offers an easy-to-use API that should be a breath of fresh air after using something like Net::HTTP.

• Maturity: http.rb is one of the most mature Ruby HTTP clients, supporting features like persistent connections and fine-grained timeouts.

• Performance: using native parsers and a clean, lightweight implementation, http.rb achieves high performance while implementing HTTP in Ruby instead of C.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem "http"

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install http

Inside of your Ruby program do:

require "http"

...to pull it in as a dependency.

Please see the http.rb wiki for more detailed documentation and usage notes.

The following API documentation is also available:

• YARD API documentation
• Chainable module (all chainable methods)

Here's some simple examples to get you started:

>> HTTP.get("https://github.com").to_s
=> "\n\n\n<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html lang=\"en\" class=\"\">\n  <head prefix=\"o..."

That's all it takes! To obtain an HTTP::Response object instead of the response body, all we have to do is omit the #to_s on the end:

>> HTTP.get("https://github.com")
=> #<HTTP::Response/1.1 200 OK {"Server"=>"GitHub.com", "Date"=>"Tue, 10 May...>

We can also obtain an HTTP::Response::Body object for this response:

>> HTTP.get("https://github.com").body
=> #<HTTP::Response::Body:3ff756862b48 @streaming=false>

The response body can be streamed with HTTP::Response::Body#readpartial. In practice, you'll want to bind the HTTP::Response::Body to a local variable and call #readpartial on it repeatedly until it returns nil:

>> body = HTTP.get("https://github.com").body
=> #<HTTP::Response::Body:3ff756862b48 @streaming=false>
>> body.readpartial
=> "\n\n\n<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html lang=\"en\" class=\"\">\n  <head prefix=\"o..."
>> body.readpartial
=> "\" href=\"/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png\">\n    <link rel=\"apple-touch-ic..."
# ...
>> body.readpartial
=> nil

Response objects support Ruby's pattern matching:

case HTTP.get("https://api.example.com/users")
in { status: 200..299, body: body }
  JSON.parse(body.to_s)
in { status: 404 }
  nil
in { status: 400.. }
  raise "request failed"
end

Pattern matching is also supported on HTTP::Response::Status, HTTP::Headers, HTTP::ContentType, and HTTP::URI.

Set a base URI to avoid repeating the scheme and host in every request:

api = HTTP.base_uri("https://api.example.com/v1")
api.get("users")       # GET https://api.example.com/v1/users
api.get("users/1")     # GET https://api.example.com/v1/users/1

Relative paths are resolved per RFC 3986. Combine with persistent to reuse the connection:

HTTP.base_uri("https://api.example.com/v1").persistent do |http|
  http.get("users")
  http.get("posts")
end

Configured sessions are safe to share across threads:

# Build a session once, use it from any thread
session = HTTP.headers("Accept" => "application/json")
              .timeout(10)
              .auth("Bearer token")

threads = 10.times.map do
  Thread.new { session.get("https://example.com/api/data") }
end
threads.each(&:join)

Chainable configuration methods (.headers, .timeout, .auth, etc.) return an HTTP::Session, which creates a fresh HTTP::Client for every request.

Persistent connections (HTTP.persistent) return an HTTP::Session that pools one HTTP::Client per origin. The session itself is not thread-safe. For thread-safe persistent connections, use the connection_pool gem:

pool = ConnectionPool.new(size: 5) { HTTP.persistent("https://example.com") }
pool.with { |http| http.get("/path") }

Cross-origin redirects are handled transparently — the session opens a separate persistent connection for each origin encountered during a redirect chain:

HTTP.persistent("https://example.com").follow do |http|
  http.get("/moved-to-other-domain")  # follows redirect across origins
end

This library aims to support and is [tested against][build-link] the following Ruby versions:

• Ruby 3.2
• Ruby 3.3
• Ruby 3.4
• Ruby 4.0

If something doesn't work on one of these versions, it's a bug.

This library may inadvertently work (or seem to work) on other Ruby versions, however support will only be provided for the versions listed above.

If you would like this library to support another Ruby version or implementation, you may volunteer to be a maintainer. Being a maintainer entails making sure all tests run and pass on that implementation. When something breaks on your implementation, you will be responsible for providing patches in a timely fashion. If critical issues for a particular implementation exist at the time of a major release, support for that Ruby version may be dropped.

See UPGRADING.md for a detailed migration guide between major versions.

See SECURITY.md for reporting vulnerabilities.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines, or the quick version:

• Fork http.rb on GitHub
• Make your changes
• Ensure all tests pass (bundle exec rake)
• Send a pull request
• If we like them we'll merge them
• If we've accepted a patch, feel free to ask for commit access!

Copyright © 2011-2026 Tony Arcieri, Erik Berlin, Alexey V. Zapparov, Zachary Anker. See LICENSE.txt for further details.