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HTTP::API::Core is a reusable policy layer for Perl JSON API clients, not an HTTP stack. It sits above a transport such as HTTP::Tiny, LWP, Mojo::UserAgent, or Furl, centralizing recurring API-client work while leaving service-specific methods and transport choice to the developer.
What problem does HTTP::API::Core address?
A small client often starts with a few requests, then accumulates repeated concerns: encoding query parameters, preparing JSON or form bodies, turning failures into useful errors, deciding when retries are safe, following pagination, respecting rate limits, and attaching authentication or request metadata. HTTP::API::Core’s documentation describes a common layer for those concerns so each service client does not have to reimplement all of them.
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The package documents JSON request and response handling, query encoding, form-urlencoded bodies, structured errors, retry behavior including Retry-After, rate-limit handling, pagination by next URL, page number, or cursor, authentication hooks, request IDs and timing, idempotency keys, and transport adapters. These are documented capabilities, not a claim that every service requires every feature or that they have been independently benchmarked. See the HTTP::API::Core documentation and its distribution page.
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Where the transport boundary sits
The HTTP library performs the network request. HTTP::API::Core handles API-client policy around that request: preparing it, interpreting the result, and applying configured behavior such as response decoding or retry policy. The project’s transport contract says alternate HTTP implementations can be used without changing API-specific client code.
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In practice, this makes the transport replaceable without making the API client itself disappear. You still choose or provide a transport and write the methods that express the service’s resources and operations. The package is not a service-specific SDK, an HTTP stack, an OpenAPI generator, a GraphQL client, a WebSocket implementation, or an asynchronous runtime.
How a transport adapter works
The documented transport constructor option accepts either a code reference or an object that provides a request method. The adapter receives an uppercase HTTP method, the final URL, and request options. By that point, the URL may include base-URL joining, encoded query parameters, and changes made by a before_request hook.
Request options include content when a body was supplied. If no body exists, the option is omitted; an explicitly supplied empty string still counts as a body and is passed along. This distinction lets an adapter preserve the caller’s intent rather than guessing from whether the body has nonzero length.
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The adapter returns a hash with a required three-digit status from 100 through 599. It may also include a reason, headers, and raw content. The core converts that result into its response object. Ordinary exceptions from the transport and malformed transport results are normalized as structured transport errors; ordinary exceptions can take part in configured retry behavior. See the transport contract for the package’s documented interface.
What belongs above the transport?
Keep API-level policy in the client layer unless a particular HTTP library requires otherwise. That includes JSON decoding, authentication behavior, pagination, rate-limit handling, and deciding whether a failure merits a retry. The transport’s job is to carry out the request and return its response, not to embed assumptions about a particular API’s semantics.
A service client still needs to map its own concepts into core requests. For example, a get_user method can accept a service-level identifier, build the relevant resource URL or request parameters, and delegate the HTTP work to the core. This division lets the shared layer handle recurring mechanics while service methods remain explicit and understandable.
Retries and idempotency require deliberate choices
Retries can improve resilience to transient failures, but repeating a request is not automatically safe. The project direction emphasizes timeouts, transient-failure handling, exponential backoff and jitter, and rate limits; it also states that unsafe methods must not be retried by default. The README documents idempotency keys but does not generate them automatically, and supplying a key does not itself make an unsafe request retryable.
For a POST or another operation that can create or change state, the application must decide whether the service supports idempotency keys, how to provide the key, and whether retrying that operation is appropriate. Keep that decision explicit in the client’s retry policy rather than treating the presence of a key as permission to repeat a request. The README documentation describes the package’s idempotency behavior.
Choosing a transport
The project names HTTP::Tiny, LWP, Mojo::UserAgent, Furl, and a test transport as possible choices. The available documentation does not provide comparative speed or reliability benchmarks, so there is no evidence-based universal ranking. Choose based on your application’s dependencies, runtime constraints, and how readily the library can implement the adapter contract.
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- Existing application dependency: using a transport already present in the application may avoid adding another HTTP stack.
- Runtime fit: check that the transport works with the application’s supported Perl and deployment environment.
- Adapter effort: confirm that you can pass the final URL and request options, then return status, headers, and raw content in the expected shape.
- Testability: a test transport can exercise client behavior without sending real network requests.
HTTP::API::Core’s project documentation names transport options but does not establish a performance winner among them.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.When a reusable policy layer makes sense
There are two reasonable approaches. With a transport alone, each API client owns its own query encoding, JSON conversion, error normalization, retry rules, and pagination handling. With a reusable layer above the transport, shared behavior has one home, while each client still implements its own service methods. The trade-off is an additional abstraction and its conventions in exchange for less repeated policy code.
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Another Perl distribution makes a different choice: MetaCPAN describes HTTP::API::Client as a thin LWP::UserAgent wrapper with callbacks, retry-with-backoff, and JSON or form encoding. Compare it against your needs in terms of transport flexibility, dependencies already in use, policy coverage, and the service-specific code you expect to maintain. The available documentation does not establish that either package is universally better.
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Installation and project expectations
The README gives this installation command:
cpanm HTTP::API::CoreThe project’s stated direction is to keep the package small, predictable, dependency-light, transport-independent, production-oriented, and testable. Its testing guidance calls for deterministic regression tests and network behavior tests that do not require live network access. Those are design goals; your own service integration still needs tests for the API’s actual request and response behavior.
The reviewed MetaCPAN pages include HTTP-API-Core 1.01 and 1.08 documentation. Because releases can change, consult the live distribution page for current version information before relying on version-specific installation or interface details.
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