Building an API with only Go's net/http

Notes from building an API server using only net/http, without a framework.

Why skip the framework

The first time I touched a framework like gin or echo, the routing and middleware were so convenient that I never really understood what was happening underneath. Since I'd rather understand the mechanics before moving on, I decided to build one using nothing but the standard library.

What I did

• Routing with http.ServeMux, parsing path parameters by hand
• Wrote middleware as function wrappers (logging, CORS, auth)
• Passed request-scoped values around using context

What I learned

I can now see, piece by piece, what a framework was actually doing for me. Even when I use gin now, I have a rough sense of what's happening under the hood.