The Sunset HTTP Header Field

Wilde, E. (2019). The Sunset HTTP Header Field.

Type

Report

Intellectual base

Grey literature

Year

2019

DOI

10.17487/rfc8594

Link

https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC8594

Cited from

linguistics_semiotics

Cited by

4 citations across 4 artifacts.

Primes

• Setup–Resolution Pair
  • Programs that work externalize the bearer rather than trusting memory: a machine-readable sunset header on every response, a warning logged on each call, a dashboard of remaining callers, and a removal announcement that quotes the original notice so the two elements are visibly linked at the moment of closure.

Mechanisms

• API Reuse Boundary Header
  • On every response the API returns `Deprecation: true` and a `Sunset` header giving the retirement date (a real, standardized HTTP header),
• Deprecation and Forwarding Notice
  • Its failure modes are the two halves left undone — deprecating without a live forwarding target (a dead end that just breaks things) or without enforcement (a notice everyone ignores while they keep using `v1` forever).
• Deprecation Notice Feed
  • … against it is to target and rate-limit notices, prefer in-band channels the consumer can't route around, and measure acknowledgement — did dependents actually act — rather than mere emission. The `Sunset` header exists precisely to make end-of-life a signal machines can act on, not a paragraph humans overlook.

Verification

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