As a website or web application owner, you want to provide the best possible experience for your users. One key aspect of that experience is page load speed, and there are a number of optimizations you can make to ensure that your pages load quickly and efficiently. One of the most promising of these optimizations is HTTP 103 Early Hints.
HTTP 103 Early Hints is a new status code that provides a way for servers to start pushing resources to clients before a full response. By using HTTP 103 Early Hints, you can improve the performance of your website and enhance the user experience.
In this article, we'll show you how to configure Cloudflare to provide HTTP 103 Early Hints. This will allow you to take advantage of the benefits of this optimization without having to make major changes to your website or web application.
Before diving into the specifics of configuring Cloudflare for HTTP 103 Early Hints, it's important to understand what sets this optimization apart from other HTTP delivery optimizations like preload directives, server push, and others.
One of the key differences between HTTP 103 Early Hints and other optimizations is that early hints are transmitted via an HTTP 103 status code, while other optimizations are typically transmitted via headers or other methods. This means that early hints can be sent even before the full response is sent, allowing the browser to start loading resources as soon as possible.
In addition to this, HTTP 103 Early Hints allows for a greater level of control over the resources that are sent to the client. This allows you to prioritize the resources that are most critical for the user experience and ensure that they are loaded as quickly as possible.
So how do you configure Cloudflare to provide HTTP 103 Early Hints? The first step is to make sure that your website or web application is running an express server that supports this optimization. You can do this by using the express-early-hints module.
Once you have the express-early-hints module installed, you'll need to configure Cloudflare to use this optimization. This is done by adding a new page rule in the Cloudflare Dashboard.
To do this, log in to your Cloudflare account and navigate to the Page Rules section. From there, create a new page rule that targets your website or web application. In the settings for this page rule, select "Add header" and enter the header "Early-Hints: headers".
With this configuration in place, Cloudflare will now provide HTTP 103 Early Hints for your website or web application, improving the performance and user experience of your site.
In conclusion, HTTP 103 Early Hints is a powerful optimization that can help you improve the performance and user experience of your website or web application. By configuring Cloudflare to provide this optimization, you can take advantage of its benefits without having to make major changes to your site. Whether you're a website or web application owner, this is an optimization that is definitely worth exploring.