HTTP Outcalls

HTTP Outcalls

HTTP outcalls extension for Caffeine AI.

Overview

This skill covers the requirements for HTTP requests from the backend canister, including GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH. Use it whenever integrating with an external API or service.

Critical requirements

Follow these rules:

• MUST use a provider-enforced bounded API request. The request must limit the response by identifier, pagination, time range, geographic area, result count, or another server-side bound appropriate to the feature. Limit each response to both at most 10_000 entries and at most 1 MB, then paginate if needed.
• MUST pick the bound that matches the feature. The five bounds are not interchangeable. When the feature looks up one entity by something the user supplies — a flight number, an order id, a ticker, a postcode — the identifier bound is the only correct choice. Paginating a collection to find that entity is the anti-pattern, not an alternative: the work still scales with the whole collection no matter how small each page is. Pagination is for a list the user deliberately pages through, not for searching.
• MUST put every bound in the actual Motoko http request. A bound used only by a local test does not protect the canister.
• NEVER fetch an unbounded collection and filter it in the canister. Expected response size, typical traffic, or a currently small dataset is not a bound.
• MUST reject the API or narrow the feature if the provider cannot enforce a response bound and supply the required data. Do not implement a knowingly unsafe fallback.
• Test locally against curl implementation. Ensure the 1:1 curl call succeeds and returns every field the app consumes. When Motoko code changes, redo the local curl test.
• Check the bounds with check_canister_api_compliance. It probes the endpoint and measures the response against those limits, and it runs behind the deploy gate, so an endpoint it refuses cannot ship.

The 1 MB and 10_000-entry limits above are the module's own ceilings — defaultMaxResponseBytes is 1 MB — and check_canister_api_compliance measures against exactly those two numbers. It refuses earlier than they do: when the URL carries no server-side bound, it blocks as soon as the probed response is already past a quarter of the byte ceiling or past 1_000 entries. That band is the dangerous one, because it passes a one-off curl and then grows until the canister exceeds its per-message instruction budget parsing the payload. Design to the stricter bound: bound the request server-side.

Choosing the wrong bound

A flight lookup takes a flight number and must return one aircraft. Fetching https://opensky-network.org/​api/​states/​all — every aircraft airborne worldwide, roughly 10-13k rows — and scanning the parsed result in Motoko for the one callsign is wrong. The canister downloads and parses every record in the world to answer a single lookup, and the message is rejected: IC0522: Canister exceeded the limit of 40000000000 instructions for single message execution. Nothing about the code looks wrong — the URL is valid, the parse compiles, and a one-off curl returns 200.

That is an instruction limit, not a byte limit. Reaching for a smaller page size does not help: the canister still walks the whole collection to find one row.

The provider already offered the right bound. ?icao24=<hex> on the same endpoint is the identifier bound: kilobytes, one aircraft, one record to parse.

Backend

For HTTP outcalls that must be performed in the backend:

The existing module mo:caffeineai-http-outcalls/​outcall.mo provides a generic bounded request function for every HTTP method supported by the IC, plus backward-compatible GET and POST helpers.

module {
  public type TransformationInput = {
    context : Blob;
    response : IC.HttpRequestResult;
  };
  public type TransformationOutput = IC.HttpRequestResult;
  public type Transform = query TransformationInput -> async TransformationOutput;
  public type Header = {
    name: Text;
    value: Text;
  };
  public type Method = {
    #get;
    #head;
    #post;
    #put;
    #delete;
    #patch;
  };
  public type Request = {
    url : Text;
    method : Method;
    headers : [Header];
    body : ?Blob;
    maxResponseBytes : Nat64;
    transform : Transform;
  };
  public type Response = IC.HttpRequestResult;
  public let defaultMaxResponseBytes : Nat64;

  // Helper function for the transform callback used by the IC on HTTP outcalls.
  public func transform(input : TransformationInput) : TransformationOutput;

  // Generic bounded request supporting GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH.
  public func httpRequest(request : Request) : async Response;

  // HTTP GET request with a transform callback function.
  public func httpGetRequest(url : Text, extraHeaders: [Header], transform : Transform) : async Text;

  // HTTP POST request, specifying a transform callback.
  public func httpPostRequest(url : Text, extraHeaders: [Header], body : Text, transform : Transform) : async Text;
};

Use httpRequest when the status, headers, a custom response limit, or a method other than GET or POST is needed. maxResponseBytes may set a lower limit; the module caps every request at defaultMaxResponseBytes (1 MB). The module executes every HTTP outcall with is_replicated = ?false; callers cannot enable replicated execution. The backward-compatible helper stays the shortest path for a simple GET:

import Text "mo:core/​Text";
import OutCall "mo:caffeineai-http-outcalls/​outcall";

actor {
  public query func transform(input: OutCall.TransformationInput) : async OutCall.TransformationOutput {
    OutCall.transform(input);
  };

  func setItemActive() : async OutCall.Response {
    await OutCall.httpRequest({
      url = "https://api.example.com/​items/​123";
      method = #patch;
      headers = [{ name = "Content-Type"; value = "application/​json" }];
      body = ?("{\"active\":true}".encodeUtf8());
      maxResponseBytes = 100_000;
      transform;
    });
  };

  func makeGetOutcall(url: Text) : async Text {
    await OutCall.httpGetRequest(url, [], transform);
  };
};

POST usage through httpPostRequest is analogous.

Verify every external API request

Before considering an HTTP outcall complete, execute the equivalent request locally with curl. Do not rely only on remembered API documentation or on the Motoko code compiling. Every check below is required. If any check fails, the HTTP outcall is incomplete and MUST NOT proceed to deployment.

1. MUST test the exact request implemented in Motoko: the same HTTP method, API version, endpoint path, query parameters, headers, and body. Testing a related endpoint or adding parameters that the implementation does not use is not valid verification.
2. MUST trace one representative user input end to end through every conversion into the API request, then test the exact resulting request. For example, if the user enters one identifier but the provider expects another identifier format, verify that mapping end to end. Calling only the provider's base or listing endpoint is insufficient.
3. MUST validate the consumed response contract. Run the request with curl --fail-with-body --silent --show-error. Verify the successful status plus every response field and type consumed by the app. A response that is merely valid JSON is not sufficient.
4. MUST run check_canister_api_compliance on the exact URL and method the implementation uses. It measures the response against the outcall byte ceiling and entry bound and reports whether the URL is bounded server-side, mechanically and behind the deploy gate, so an outcall to a host it never cleared cannot ship. When it refuses an endpoint, choose a compatible public API or narrow the feature honestly; do not implement an unbounded fetch-all request and filter it in the canister.

Response bounds are that check's job, not curl's. The checks above are the ones it cannot do for you: it probes the endpoint, not the app, so it never learns which response fields the app reads or what the user typed to produce the URL.

If the request fails or any check above is unmet, inspect the status and response body. Check the provider's current official API documentation and release or migration notes with web search. Confirm the current API version, endpoint, parameter names and formats, required headers, and request body. Do not guess around failures. Fix the Motoko request to match the working REST request and rerun curl; repeat until all checks pass, then rerun the backend checks. Never report completion while any required check is missing or failed.

Typical failure clues: 400 indicates invalid parameters or body shape; 404/410 often indicates an obsolete endpoint or API version; 405 indicates the wrong method; and 415 indicates the wrong content type. Treat 429 and 5xx responses as quota or provider availability issues only after confirming the request against current official documentation.