Building Blocks for HTTP APIs M. Nottingham Internet-Draft 1 February 2023 Intended status: Standards Track Expires: 5 August 2023 The Link-Template HTTP Header Field draft-ietf-httpapi-link-template-02 Abstract This specification defines the Link-Template HTTP header field, providing a means for describing the structure of a link between two resources, so that new links can be generated. About This Document This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC. The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://ietf-wg- httpapi.github.io/link-template/draft-ietf-httpapi-link- template.html. Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpapi-link-template/. Discussion of this document takes place on the Building Blocks for HTTP APIs Working Group mailing list (mailto:httpapi@ietf.org), which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/httpapi/. Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/httpapi/. Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/ietf-wg-httpapi/link-template. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on 5 August 2023. Nottingham Expires 5 August 2023 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Link-Template February 2023 Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. The Link-Template Header Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1. The 'var-base' parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1. Introduction [URI-TEMPLATE] defines a syntax for templates that, when expanded using a set of variables, results in a URI [URI]. This specification defines a HTTP header field [HTTP] for conveying templates for links in the headers of a HTTP message. It is complimentary to the Link header field defined in Section 3 of [WEB-LINKING], which carries links directly. 1.1. Notational Conventions The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. This specification uses the following terms from [STRUCTURED-FIELDS]: List, String, Parameter. Nottingham Expires 5 August 2023 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Link-Template February 2023 2. The Link-Template Header Field The Link-Template header field is a Structured Field [STRUCTURED-FIELDS] that serializes one or more links into HTTP message metadata. It is semantically equivalent to the Link header field defined in Section 3 of [WEB-LINKING], except that it uses URI Templates [URI-TEMPLATE] to convey the structure of links. Its value is a List of Strings. Each String is a URI Template, and Parameters on it carry associated metadata. For example: Link-Template: "/{username}"; rel="https://example.org/rel/user" indicates that a resource with the relation type "https://example.org/rel/user" can be found by expanding the "username" variable into the template given. The target for the link (as defined in Section 2 of [WEB-LINKING]) is the result of expanding the URI Template [URI-TEMPLATE] (being converted to an absolute URI after expansion, if necessary). The context, relation type and target attributes for the link are determined as defined for the Link header field in Section 3 of [WEB-LINKING]. Parameters on a templated link have identical semantics to those of a Link header field. This includes (but is not limited to) the use of the "rel" parameter to convey the relation type, the "anchor" parameter to modify the context IRI, and so on. Parameter values MUST be Strings. Likewise, the requirements for parameters on templated links are the same as those for a Link header field. However, the "anchor" parameter MAY contain a URI Template. For example: Link-Template: ; rel="author" anchor="#{book_id}" Here, the link to the author for a particular book in a list of books can be found by following the link template. Implementations MUST support all levels of template defined by [URI-TEMPLATE] in both the rel and anchor parameters. Nottingham Expires 5 August 2023 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Link-Template February 2023 This specification defines additional semantics for the "var-base" parameter on templated links; see below. 2.1. The 'var-base' parameter When a templated link has a 'var-base' parameter, its value conveys a URI-reference that is used as a base URI for the variable names in the URI template. This allows template variables to be globally identified, rather than specific to the context of use. Dereferencing the URI for a particular variable might lead to more information about the syntax or semantics of that variable; specification of particular formats for this information is out of scope for this document. To determine the URI for a given variable, the value given is used as a base URI in reference resolution (as specified in [URI]). If the resulting URI is still relative, the context of the link is used as the base URI in a further resolution; see [WEB-LINKING]. For example: Link-Template: "/widgets/{widget_id}" rel="https://example.org/rel/widget"; var-base="https://example.org/vars/" indicates that a resource with the relation type "https://example.org/rel/widget" can be found by expanding the "https://example.org/vars/widget_id" variable into the template given. If the current context of the message that the header appears within is "https://example.org/", the same information could be conveyed by this header field: Link-Template: "/widgets/{widget_id}"; rel="https://example.org/rel/widget"; var-base="/vars/" 3. Security Considerations The security consideration for the Link header field in [WEB-LINKING] and those for URI Templates [URI-TEMPLATE] both apply. 4. IANA Considerations This specification enters the "Link-Template" into the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Field Name Registry. Nottingham Expires 5 August 2023 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Link-Template February 2023 Field Name: Link-Template Status: permanent Specification document: [this document] 5. Normative References [HTTP] Fielding, R. T., Nottingham, M., and J. Reschke, "HTTP Semantics", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf- httpbis-semantics-19, 12 September 2021, . [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . [STRUCTURED-FIELDS] Nottingham, M. and P-H. Kamp, "Structured Field Values for HTTP", RFC 8941, DOI 10.17487/RFC8941, February 2021, . [URI] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005, . [URI-TEMPLATE] Gregorio, J., Fielding, R., Hadley, M., Nottingham, M., and D. Orchard, "URI Template", RFC 6570, DOI 10.17487/RFC6570, March 2012, . [WEB-LINKING] Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 8288, DOI 10.17487/RFC8288, October 2017, . Author's Address Mark Nottingham Prahran Australia Email: mnot@mnot.net Nottingham Expires 5 August 2023 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Link-Template February 2023 URI: https://www.mnot.net/ Nottingham Expires 5 August 2023 [Page 6]