Contact emailsri...@chromium.org, kou...@chromium.org

Explainerhttps://github.com/WICG/nav-speculation/blob/main/no-vary-search.md

Specification
https://httpwg.org/http-extensions/draft-ietf-httpbis-no-vary-search.html

Design docs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RS3q6qZ7-k9CvZsDYseGOXzcdQ9fGZ6YYnaW7fTPu7A/edit

Summary

Enables the HTTP disk cache to use the No-Vary-Search response header to
share a cache entry between URLs that differ only in the query parameters.
Developers can use No-Vary-Search to specify query parameters that have no
impact on the user experience. A common example might be an id used to
track conversions. Supporting this header in the HTTP disk cache means that
if the user later goes back to that same page without the conversion id, it
can be used or revalidated from the cache rather than having to be fetched
from scratch from the network.


Blink componentInternals>Network>Cache
<https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=customfield1222907:%22Internals%3ENetwork%3ECache%22>

TAG reviewhttps://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/797

TAG review statusIssues addressed

Risks


Interoperability and Compatibility

No-Vary-Search is a best-effort feature, meaning that servers cannot rely
on it being implemented by caches. As a result, it is quite easy to remove
if not widely adopted. The main interoperability risk is that it gets
widely adopted, and then other browsers implement something similar but
different. That might leave us in the difficult situation of having to
support two similar features, or doing a deprecation of a widely-adopted
feature.


*Gecko*: Positive (https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/717
)

*WebKit*: No signal (
https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/106)

*Web developers*: Positive (
https://techshed.runbookdocs.com/docs/tips/6/no-vary-search)

*Other signals*:

Ergonomics

This feature will usually be used in tandem with the Cache-Control,
Last-Modified and/or ETag response headers that control the cachability of
the response. The implementation design was carefully chosen to avoid
additional disk accesses and to minimize the overhead when it is not in
use. To avoid context switches, it must run synchronously on the IO thread
in the network service, so high performance is essential.


Activation

Implementation is easy for developers who are able to customize their HTTP
response headers. The most time-consuming part is determining which query
parameters do not affect user-visible behavior. Developers who cannot
customize their HTTP response headers will have to wait for support from
the framework or hosting providers they are using.


Security

The feature must not expose any information to the page that it would not
have had otherwise. For this reason, the implementation uses exactly the
same partitioning method as the HTTP disk cache. An overly-broad setting
for the No-Vary-Search response header can, in combination with other
server-side bugs, lead to an attacker being able to control the content
which is shown to the user. However, the risk is no worse than with
existing features that permit customizing responses like ServiceWorkers.
See the design document for more details.


WebView application risks

Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that
it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?

None


Goals for experimentation

The feature will be enabled for 50% of Canary and Dev channels. The purpose
of the experiment at this stage is to verify that performance and stability
are not regressed by the feature being enabled.

Ongoing technical constraints

None


Debuggability

Integration with DevTools is not currently planned, but may be added as a
future enhancement.


Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac,
Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)?Yes

Feature is implemented in //net, so all platforms that use the //net layer
for navigation & subresources will have it.


Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests
<https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>
?No

Flag name on about://flagsNone

Finch feature nameHttpCacheNoVarySearch

Requires code in //chrome?False

Tracking bughttps://issues.chromium.org/issues/382394774

Launch bughttps://launch.corp.google.com/launch/4373880

MeasurementHistogram HttpCache.NoVarySearch.UseResult collects information
about what proportion of requests use a different cache entry due to
No-Vary-Search. Histogram HttpCache.NoVarySearch.HeaderParseResult collects
information about what proportion of response have a No-Vary-Search header.

Estimated milestones
DevTrial on desktop 135
DevTrial on Android 135

Anticipated spec changes

Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or
interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues
in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may
introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure of
the API in a non-backward-compatible way).
None; everything in
https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/labels/no-vary-search is editorial

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status
https://chromestatus.com/feature/5808599110254592

Links to previous Intent discussionsIntent to Prototype:
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/67ac01fe.2b0a0220.1b0c0.02a6.GAE%40google.com


This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status
<https://chromestatus.com/>.

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