poimen-memory/tasks/M3.5.1-http-server.md

M3.5.1 — HTTP server + router, auth hook, metrics

Field	Value
Phase	M3.5 — Distributed API Layer
Size	M — 1–3 days
Status	✅ Done
Flags	—
Spec	inlined below
Blocks	M3.5.2, M3.5.3, M3.5.5, M3.5.6

Goal

HTTP facade for homelab gateway. Three routes (/ingest, /query, /skills), async background tasks, request metrics. Auth hook validates apikey: header (placeholder — M3.5.10 replaces with Vault/Authentik OIDC). Stateless — no business logic here, just request demultiplexing.

Architecture

nginx ingress + homelab-frontend gateway (api.riotpiao.com)
    ↓ apikey validation
HTTP Server (Rust httpd, actix-web or axum)
    ↓ route dispatch
/ingest (async)  /query (sync)  /skills (read-only)

Steps

1. mem-cli grows a serve command: cargo run -p mem-cli -- serve --port 8080 --db-url $DB_URL
2. Choose framework: actix-web (stable, high perf) or axum (newer, composable). Decision required — pick one and document the choice.
3. Three route handlers (bodies empty for now, return 200 OK with {"status":"ok"}):
   • POST /memory/ingest — returns 202 with a stub job_id
   • GET /memory/query — returns 200 with empty results []
   • GET /memory/skills — returns 200 with empty skills []
4. Request logger middleware — every request logs method, path, status, latency in one line (not pretty-printed).
5. Metrics middleware — track latency histogram per route (p50/p95/p99 in microseconds), request count, error count.
6. Auth hook (placeholder):
   • Extract apikey: header (case-insensitive header name, exact value match against stored key)
   • If missing or unrecognized → 401 with {"error":"unauthorized","reason":"missing apikey header"}
   • Pass apikey to request context so handlers can log which key made the request
7. CORS: disable (agents are internal cluster; no browser requests expected)
8. Health check: GET /health returns 200 {"status":"ok","uptime_seconds":N}

Acceptance

• Server starts without errors
• Health check responds
• Three routes defined and callable
• Auth middleware rejects missing apikey (401)
• Request logger emits latency per request
• Metrics collected (observable via endpoint or in-process)

Verify

Harness: Integration tests against a live server instance started in each test.

Integration test — tests/it_http_server.rs:

1. a1_server_starts — HttpServer::new(...).run() succeeds, port is open.
2. a2_health_check — GET /health returns 200 and body contains "ok".
3. a3_auth_missing_is_401 — GET /memory/skills with no apikey header returns 401.
4. a4_auth_wrong_is_401 — GET /memory/skills with apikey: wrong returns 401.
5. a5_auth_correct_passes — GET /memory/skills with correct apikey: $TEST_KEY returns 200.
6. a6_request_latency_logged — make a request, capture log output, assert it contains microsecond latency.
7. a7_three_routes_exist — POST /ingest, GET /query, GET /skills all return 200 (not 404).
8. a8_metrics_collected — inspect metrics middleware state after request, assert latency histogram contains sample.

Command: cargo test -p mem-cli http_server

False pass:

• Auth check only verified on one endpoint. Test all three separately — a route without middleware does not inherit it.
• Metrics collected but never asserted. A metrics middleware that silently fails still compiles.
• Latency logged in milliseconds. The real metric needs microseconds (or the paper's 5000-token chunk at 812ms latency dominates the timing, and p99 becomes meaningless).

Traps

• Actix-web's .service() does not inherit middleware registered outside a scope; scope middleware applies only to routes inside that scope.
• Header name: apikey: (lowercase). Placeholder — M3.5.10 replaces with Vault token validation.
• tokio::runtime::Runtime::new() in tests blocks on network if used naively — use test utilities from actix-web or axum that spawn the server in a background thread.
• Metrics registered at startup are easy to forget to increment. Middleware must actually call the metrics update, not just define it.

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Background: DESIGN.md § Distributed API Layer