Raw HTTP Server: A Minimal API Without Frameworks

HTTP Server as a Runtime Boundary

The http module is not a framework. It is a thin abstraction over TCP sockets that exposes request and response streams. In production systems, this boundary defines latency, throughput, and resource consumption.

Server Lifecycle

An HTTP server must handle connection setup, request parsing, response streaming, and graceful shutdown. Production systems must handle SIGTERM correctly and stop accepting new connections before shutting down.

import http from 'http';

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
  res.end('OK');
});

server.listen(3000);

Production Considerations

Always monitor open connections, memory usage per request, and avoid synchronous work inside request handlers. HTTP is the concurrency gateway of your system.