OpenAI: Migrating to HTTPX2

ttosh about 3 hours ago 41 commentsRead Article on github.com

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Discussion (41 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

simonw•about 2 hours ago

Anthropic made the same change a few weeks after OpenAI did: https://github.com/anthropics/anthropic-sdk-python/releases/...

The problem with httpx as a dependency is that it's currently working towards a 1.0 release which will be full of breaking changes.

The httpx2 project is essentially a fork that promises not to break the existing API, which makes it a more stable dependency to build against.

I wrote a pretty long comment about my concerns for the breaking 1.0 version last year - https://github.com/encode/httpx/discussions/3344#discussionc... - in that comment I recommended the HTTPX project release their 1.0 as a package called httpx2 instead, but a year later we now have an httpx2 (released by a different maintainer) that keeps the old API.

Aurornis•about 1 hour ago

> The problem with httpx as a dependency is that it's currently working towards a 1.0 release which will be full of breaking changes.

The httpx maintainer closed off access to issues and discussions on the repo, has been ignoring PRs, and hasn’t updated it in a half a year.

I don’t think there is any reason to consider httpx as a viable project any more. The Pydantic httpx fork has taken its place.

simonw•about 1 hour ago

HTTPX stable hasn't had a release since December 2024, but there have been two dev releases of the 1.0 branch this month (after a gap since September 2025.)

Unfortunately that 1.0 work is happening in a private repository.

https://pypi.org/project/httpx/#history

Aurornis•44 minutes ago

> Unfortunately that 1.0 work is happening in a private repository.

That’s even more reason to consider it non-viable.

There is no reason to encourage or support this type of behavior in a project. It is their right to do with it as they please, but I’m not interested in a project that functions like this. The forks are continuing to operate like true community projects.

superze•about 1 hour ago

The issue with httpx is that it has an obnoxious and toxic maintainer.

portly•about 1 hour ago

What happened?

beanjuiceII•about 1 hour ago

was probably chewing bubble gum on the wrong sidewalk

networked•about 2 hours ago

So I guess HTTPX2 (https://github.com/pydantic/httpx2) is winning out over HTTPXYZ (https://codeberg.org/httpxyz/httpxyz)? I didn't switch to HTTPXYZ after the fork but have been watching it. (What I did was use urllib.request more and bite the Rust bullet with wreq, https://github.com/0x676e67/wreq-python, where it wasn't enough.)

kelvinjps10•about 1 hour ago

in their README >Important

We started this fork because there was no activity on HTTPX, a very popular Python HTTP library.

A few weeks later, Pydantic started their own fork called HTTPX2. We decided to embrace this and support HTTPX2. We're upstreaming our fixes to HTTPX2 and in our opinion it should be the "blessed" fork. Pydantic can make this more successful than we ever can.

Thanks for all your support!

Sander & Michiel

simonw•about 2 hours ago

httpx2 is sponsored by Pydantic and has involvement from the new maintainer of Starlette, so it's off to a very strong start.

krzyk•about 1 hour ago

A bit strange considering "coding is solved".

But seriously, migrating between different libs should be ~free for both Anthropic and OpenAI.

simonw•about 1 hour ago

A migration document like this one is how you get that ~free upgrade - it's something you can point an agent at.

tonyhart7•about 1 hour ago

"I recommended the HTTPX project release their 1.0 as a package called httpx2 instead, but a year later we now have an httpx2 (released by a different maintainer) that keeps the old API"

wtf is going on

ClikeX•about 1 hour ago

Open Source disputes.

rolymath•about 2 hours ago

The Python community loves confusing versioning.

I mean, obviously Python 2.7 is newer than Python 3.1

I remember swearing I would never migrate to python3 but here we are, I migrated without even feeling it or realizing when (But I do remember django played a big role).

chme•about 2 hours ago

That isn't confusing at all, if you know how maintained stable releases work.

Happens with the Linux kernel as well.

hk__2•about 1 hour ago

There are a lot of large projects where X.1 is newer than Y.0. You release a new major version for breaking changes, but you backport security changes to previous major releases as well.

Longwelwind•about 2 hours ago

Isn't that whole point of semantic release?

Minors and hotfixes allow you to release a new version for an older release (like if you released 3.7 but you found a bug present in 3.4, you can release 3.4.1 which would be newer than 3.7), making it possible to have multiple supported versions at the same time.

yard2010•about 1 hour ago

Tangibly related, did you know that odd versions of node don't get LTS, I found it odd at first

paulddraper•about 1 hour ago

That’s probably the worst example you could have chosen.

You shouldn’t assume anything about relative date of 2.7 and 3.1.

jklehm•4 minutes ago

Wonder if they evaluated httpx2 vs niquests: https://github.com/jawah/niquests

ironqcold•9 minutes ago

Oh, well... It was bound to happen eventually. I suppose there must be some advantages to such a solution.

ZeroCool2u•42 minutes ago

The requests packages fundamental API is good enough and is now maintained by the PSF. I don't understand why OpenAI and Anthropic don't just throw some $$$ to the PSF for focused improvements and expansion of it.

londons_explore•about 2 hours ago

There seems to be a bunch of downsides mentioned...

But what are the upsides of this change?

ddorian43•about 2 hours ago

https://github.com/encode/httpx/discussions/3784

> I've closed off access to issues and discussions.

> I don't want to continue allowing an online environment with such an absurdly skewed gender representation. I find it intensely unwelcoming, and it's not reflective of the type of working environments I value.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/1rl5kuq/anyone_know...

solox3•about 1 hour ago

Did this move improve the ratio of gender representation in the software development community?

superze•about 1 hour ago

Yes, httpx2 is now female since we all got pregnant by reading this fuckery.

philipallstar•about 2 hours ago

It's like that time I started a primary school and then closed it because I hated that the overwhelming majority of employees were women.

porridgeraisin•about 2 hours ago

This has happened in many packages contributed to by this person. Mkdocs e.g

sunaookami•34 minutes ago

Oh boy, no wonder MkDocs became an absolute shit-show that fucked everyone over... https://github.com/mkdocs/mkdocs/discussions/4077#discussion...

dgellow•about 1 hour ago

That’s fair, good for the maintainer to consider his personal values with regards to projects he wants to spend his time on

mrtksn•40 minutes ago

Well, the client side of the AI chat sucks for me lately. Both ChatGPT and Gemini will say that the connection was lost or there’s a problem with the page and will force me to reload and send the promt again. Especially Gemini is horrible, this starts happening just after the second message. I dread using through the browser both. I haven’t investigated why this happens but maybe this change will come with an improvement.

tosh•about 3 hours ago

nb: operating system TLS trust store is used now (instead of certifi)

zx8080•about 2 hours ago

This could be a breaking change (for some corporate network environments).

hmokiguess•about 2 hours ago

what's `nb` ?

tosh•about 2 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nota_bene

hmokiguess•about 2 hours ago

Thank you! :)

fsuts•about 1 hour ago

Why is everyone so slow to move to http3?

ledoncool•about 2 hours ago

Wow, finally...