{
  "id": 12662508,
  "title": "Why a Slow HTTP Call Could Delay Other Kong Requests",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/why-a-slow-http-call-could-delay-other-kong-requests",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-07T15:43:47.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "HackerNoon",
    "slug": "hackernoon",
    "url": "https://hackernoon.com/why-a-slow-http-call-could-delay-other-kong-requests?source=rss"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A slow HTTP call can delay other requests within a Kong API gateway. When Kong plugins make outbound calls to internal services, LuaSocket is often used for these connections. LuaSocket performs blocking network operations, which can stall the worker processing the request. This results in other requests assigned to the same worker being delayed. The delay becomes more pronounced when the dependency is unhealthy, with connection and read timeouts prolonging the wait. To resolve this issue, the HTTP helper was updated to use lua-resty-http, which is designed for OpenResty cosockets. This change allows network operations to yield to the event loop, enabling the worker to handle other requests while waiting for the socket. Although the client request still waits for the downstream response, the blocking effect on the worker is mitigated. Under test conditions, the total request time dropped significantly to just 0.005 seconds after implementing this fix. However, it's important to note that the downstream call remains blocked from the perspective of the entire request, even though the worker can process other requests during this time. For larger payloads, the lower-level lua-resty-http API should be used to prevent buffering and manage connections more efficiently.",
  "summary": "Learn how a blocking LuaSocket call inside a Kong plugin delayed unrelated requests and how lua-resty-http and OpenResty cosockets improved gateway latency.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}