[TT-15507] Reverting /hello endpoint to always return 200 status code

[mativm02]

User description

Description

Related Issue

Motivation and Context

How This Has Been Tested

Screenshots (if appropriate)

Types of changes

• Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to change)
• Refactoring or add test (improvements in base code or adds test coverage to functionality)

Checklist

• I ensured that the documentation is up to date
• I explained why this PR updates go.mod in detail with reasoning why it's required
• I would like a code coverage CI quality gate exception and have explained why

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PR Type

Bug fix

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Description

• /hello endpoint now always returns HTTP 200 status

• Removed dynamic status code logic from liveness handler

• Simplified health check status evaluation

• Cleaned up error handling in response encoding

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Diagram Walkthrough

flowchart LR
  oldHandler["Liveness handler with dynamic status"] -- "removed" --> newHandler["Liveness handler always returns 200"]
  errorHandling["Error handling for JSON encoding"] -- "simplified" --> newHandler
  healthEval["Health check status evaluation"] -- "simplified" --> newHandler

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File Walkthrough

	Relevant files
Bug fix	health_check.go Liveness endpoint always returns HTTP 200, simplified logic gateway/health_check.go Modified liveness handler to always return HTTP 200 Removed logic for dynamic HTTP status based on health checks Simplified health check status evaluation logic Removed error logging for JSON encoding failures +21/-8

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[buger]

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[github-actions]

PR Reviewer Guide 🔍

Here are some key observations to aid the review process:

⏱️ Estimated effort to review: 2 🔵🔵⚪⚪⚪

🧪 No relevant tests

🔒 No security concerns identified

⚡ Recommended focus areas for review Error Handling Removed The new implementation of the /hello endpoint omits error handling for the JSON encoding of the response. Previously, encoding errors were logged; now, any encoding failure will silently fail. This should be validated to ensure it does not impact observability or debugging. json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res) } Always 200 Status Code The endpoint now always returns HTTP 200, regardless of health check status. Reviewers should confirm this is the intended behavior and that it does not affect monitoring or alerting systems that rely on non-200 status codes for failures. w.WriteHeader(http.StatusOK) json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res)

[github-actions]

PR Code Suggestions ✨

Explore these optional code suggestions:

Category	Suggestion	Impact
Possible issue	Handle JSON encoding errors in response Check the error returned by json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res) and handle it appropriately, such as logging a warning. Ignoring the error could hide encoding failures and make debugging difficult. gateway/health_check.go [220] -json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res) +if err := json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res); err != nil { + mainLog.Warning("[Liveness] Could not encode response, error: %s", err.Error()) +} Suggestion importance[1-10]: 7 __ Why: Handling the error from json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res) improves robustness and debuggability, but omitting it is not a critical bug since encoding errors are rare in this context. The suggestion is accurate and relevant to the code diff.	Medium

[github-actions]

API Changes

no api changes detected

[github-actions]

🛡️ Security Snapshot

Effort	Risk Level	Tests	Compliance	TL;DR
Low	🟢	✅	✔️	Changing liveness endpoint to always return 200 has minimal security impact

## Security Impact Analysis

The PR changes the /hello endpoint (liveness handler) to always return a 200 status code regardless of the actual health status. This is primarily an operational change rather than a security-focused one. The endpoint still returns the actual health status in the response body, but the HTTP status code will always be 200. This pattern is common for Kubernetes liveness probes, which are designed to restart pods only if the application is completely down.

## Identified Vulnerabilities

No direct security vulnerabilities introduced by this change. The modification:

• Does not affect authentication or authorization
• Does not expose sensitive information
• Does not change input validation or sanitization
• Does not modify TLS or encryption settings

The only minor concern is the removal of error logging for JSON encoding failures, which slightly reduces observability but does not constitute a security vulnerability.

## Security Recommendations

Consider retaining error logging for JSON encoding failures to maintain observability. While encoding errors are rare, logging them helps with debugging and ensures that any unexpected behavior is captured:

if err := json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res); err != nil {
    mainLog.Warning("[Liveness] Could not encode response, error: %s", err.Error())
}

## OWASP Compliance

This change does not impact OWASP Top 10 concerns:

• No authentication/authorization changes (A2:2021)
• No data exposure risks (A3:2021)
• No logging/monitoring reduction that would impact security (A9:2021)
• No API security concerns introduced (API Security Top 10)

The change aligns with standard health check implementation patterns used in cloud-native applications.

## Summary

• The change to make the /hello endpoint always return 200 is operationally focused and has minimal security impact
• Removing error logging slightly reduces observability but is not a security concern
• The change follows standard patterns for liveness probes in containerized environments
• No security issues identified – change LGTM.

---

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[github-actions]

🚀 Performance Snapshot

Effort	Perf Risk	Hot Paths	Benchmarks	TL;DR
Low	🟢	✅	❔	Minimal performance improvement from simplifying liveness endpoint logic

## Performance Impact Analysis

The changes to the /hello endpoint (liveness handler) simplify the code path by removing function calls and conditional logic. The PR eliminates the evaluateHealthChecks and determineHealthStatus function calls, replacing them with direct inline logic. This reduces stack overhead and simplifies the execution path. The removal of error logging for JSON encoding failures also eliminates a potential performance cost in error scenarios.

## Critical Areas

The liveness endpoint is not in a critical performance path for normal API traffic processing. It's primarily used by monitoring systems and Kubernetes health probes, which typically poll at intervals of several seconds. The changes don't affect any data structures or algorithms that would impact the core request processing pipeline. The simplification of the health check evaluation logic is a positive change from a performance perspective.

## Optimization Recommendations

While the removal of error logging improves performance slightly, it comes at the cost of reduced observability. Consider adding a debug-level log for JSON encoding failures to maintain some level of observability without the overhead of warning-level logging. This would help with troubleshooting in development environments while keeping production performance optimal.

## Summary

• The change to always return HTTP 200 from the liveness endpoint simplifies the code path
• Inlining the health check evaluation logic eliminates function call overhead
• Removing error logging reduces overhead in error cases but impacts observability
• No suggestions to provide – change LGTM.

---

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[github-actions]

🚦 Connectivity Review Snapshot

Effort	Tests	Security	Perf	TL;DR
Low	✅	🔒 none	🟢	Liveness endpoint now always returns HTTP 200 regardless of Redis connectivity status

## Connectivity Assessment

• Redis Connections: The PR modifies the /hello endpoint to always return HTTP 200 status code regardless of Redis connectivity status. The actual Redis connection check still occurs, but failures no longer affect the HTTP status code.
• RPC Connections: Similar to Redis, RPC connection failures are still detected and reported in the response body, but they no longer trigger non-200 HTTP status codes.
• Synchronization Mechanisms: No changes to the underlying health check gathering mechanism or frequency. The PR only affects how results are presented via HTTP status codes.

## Test Coverage Validation

• Redis Tests: Existing tests for the liveness handler should be updated to verify that HTTP 200 is always returned, even when Redis connectivity fails.
• RPC Tests: No specific RPC connectivity test changes needed as the behavior change is at the HTTP response level.
• Failure Scenario Tests: The PR simplifies error handling by removing the JSON encoding error logging, which could slightly reduce observability of encoding failures.

## Security & Performance Impact

• Authentication Changes: None - this change doesn't affect authentication mechanisms.
• Performance Considerations: Minimal positive impact by simplifying the response logic and removing unnecessary error handling.
• Error Handling: Removed error logging for JSON encoding failures, which could slightly reduce debugging capabilities but is unlikely to cause issues as encoding errors are rare.

## Summary & Recommendations

• This change makes the liveness probe more reliable for Kubernetes and other orchestration systems that expect a binary up/down signal via HTTP status code.
• The actual health information is still available in the response body for monitoring systems that parse the JSON response.
• Consider adding a comment explaining why the endpoint always returns 200 to prevent future developers from "fixing" this behavior.

---

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[github-actions]

📦 Impact Review Snapshot

Effort	Downstream Updates	Compatibility	Docs	TL;DR
Low	✅	🟢	📖	Liveness endpoint now always returns 200 OK regardless of health status

## Impact Assessment

This change modifies the behavior of the /hello endpoint (Liveness handler) to always return HTTP 200 OK status code, regardless of the actual health check status. Previously, it would return HTTP 500 when Redis connectivity failed. The health status information is still included in the response body JSON, but the HTTP status code will no longer reflect failures.

This is a common pattern for liveness probes in Kubernetes environments, where a non-200 status would cause pod restarts. The change is isolated to the gateway's internal health check handling and doesn't modify any API definitions, schemas, or protocols that would affect downstream repositories.

## Required Updates

No updates are required in downstream repositories as this change:

1. Doesn't modify any API definitions or schemas (apidef/*.go)
2. Doesn't change any configuration structures or environment variables
3. Doesn't alter any RPC protocols or message formats
4. Doesn't impact authentication or policy structures

However, if any downstream repositories have tests or monitoring that expect the /hello endpoint to return non-200 status codes on failure, those would need to be updated:

• tyk-operator: If it includes health check monitoring that relies on HTTP status codes
• tyk-charts: If Kubernetes liveness probe configurations expect specific status codes
• portal: If it includes health monitoring of gateway instances
• tyk-sink: If it monitors gateway health status via HTTP status codes

## Compatibility Concerns

The main compatibility concern is for any monitoring or alerting systems that rely on HTTP status codes from the /hello endpoint to detect failures. These systems would need to be updated to inspect the response body instead.

It's worth noting that the PR maintains backward compatibility in terms of the response body format - the JSON structure remains the same with health status information. Only the HTTP status code behavior has changed.

The PR also removes error logging for JSON encoding failures, which might slightly reduce observability but is unlikely to cause operational issues since encoding errors are rare in this context.

The test case TestLivenessError in gateway/health_check_test.go will need to be updated to expect HTTP 200 instead of HTTP 500.

## Summary & Recommendations

• This change aligns with Kubernetes best practices for liveness probes, which should return 200 OK unless the process is completely unresponsive
• Consider adding a note to documentation explaining this behavior change for operators who might be monitoring the HTTP status code
• Consider keeping the error logging for JSON encoding failures for better observability
• Update the test case TestLivenessError to expect HTTP 200 instead of HTTP 500
• No suggestions to provide for downstream repositories – change LGTM.

---

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Tyk Gateway Dependency Impact Reviewer

[github-actions]

Analysis of PR #7278: Reverting /hello endpoint to always return 200 status code

This PR modifies the behavior of the /hello endpoint (liveness handler) in Tyk Gateway to always return HTTP 200 OK status code, regardless of the actual health status of the components. This is a common pattern for Kubernetes liveness probes, which should only fail when the process itself is completely unresponsive.

Key Changes:

1. Always Return 200 Status Code: The liveness handler now always returns HTTP 200 OK, even when Redis or other critical services are down. Previously, it would return HTTP 500 (Internal Server Error) in those cases.

2. Simplified Health Status Calculation: The code for calculating the health status has been inlined in the handler instead of using the helper functions evaluateHealthChecks() and determineHealthStatus().

3. Consistent Error Handling: Error handling for JSON encoding is now consistent between liveness and readiness handlers.

4. Readiness Handler Unchanged: The readiness handler (/ready endpoint) still returns 503 Service Unavailable when Redis is down or API definitions haven't been loaded, maintaining its distinct behavior from the liveness handler.

Impact:

• The health status (Pass/Fail/Warn) is still calculated and included in the response body, so monitoring systems that parse the JSON response can still detect failures.
• Kubernetes and other orchestration systems will no longer restart pods based on Redis connectivity issues, which is the intended behavior for liveness probes.
• The tests already expect the liveness endpoint to return HTTP 200 OK even when Redis is failing, which aligns with the changes in this PR.

Minor Concern:

The PR removes error logging for JSON encoding failures in the liveness handler, which could slightly reduce observability. However, encoding errors are rare in this context, and the readiness handler still logs these errors.

Overall, this change aligns with best practices for Kubernetes liveness probes and simplifies the code while maintaining the ability to monitor component health through the response body.

---

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[github-actions]

Security Impact Analysis of PR #7278

This PR modifies the /hello endpoint (liveness handler) to always return HTTP 200 status code regardless of the actual health check status. The key changes include:

1. Always returning 200 OK: The endpoint now returns HTTP 200 even when Redis or RPC connections fail, instead of previously returning 500 for critical failures.

2. Simplified health check evaluation: The PR removes calls to evaluateHealthChecks() and determineHealthStatus() functions, replacing them with direct inline logic that still sets the appropriate status in the response body.

3. Removed error logging: The PR removes explicit error logging for JSON encoding failures, which slightly reduces observability.

Security Assessment

This change has minimal security impact as it only affects how the health status is reported via HTTP status codes, not the actual security controls or authentication mechanisms.

Positive Aspects

• Aligns with Kubernetes best practices for liveness probes
• Maintains the same health information in the response body
• Reduces potential for unnecessary pod restarts in orchestrated environments

Potential Concerns

• The removal of error logging for JSON encoding failures slightly reduces observability, though encoding errors are rare in this context
• Monitoring systems that rely on HTTP status codes (rather than parsing the response body) will need to be updated

Recommendation

Consider retaining error logging for JSON encoding failures to maintain observability, but the current implementation is acceptable from a security perspective.

Overall, this is a safe operational change that follows standard patterns for containerized applications.

---

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[github-actions]

Analysis of PR #7278: Reverting /hello endpoint to always return 200 status code

Overview

This PR modifies the LivenessHandler function in gateway/health_check.go to always return HTTP 200 status code, regardless of the actual health check status of Redis or RPC connections. This change aligns with Kubernetes best practices for liveness probes.

Current Implementation

Currently, the LivenessHandler function:

func (gw *Gateway) LivenessHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    // ...
    redisStatus, rpcStatus := evaluateHealthChecks(gw)
    res.Checks.Redis.Status = redisStatus
    res.Checks.RPC.Status = rpcStatus
    statusCode := determineHealthStatus(redisStatus, rpcStatus)
    w.WriteHeader(statusCode)
    if err := json.NewEncoder(w).Encode(res); err != nil {
        mainLog.Error("Could not encode liveness response, error: ", err)
    }
}

The determineHealthStatus function returns http.StatusInternalServerError (500) if either Redis or RPC status is "error", otherwise it returns http.StatusOK (200).

Changes in this PR

Based on the PR description, the changes include:

1. Always Return 200 Status Code: The handler will now always return HTTP 200 OK, even when Redis or RPC health checks fail.

2. Removed Dynamic Status Code Logic: The dependency on the determineHealthStatus function is removed or modified to always return 200.

3. Simplified Health Check Evaluation: While health checks are still performed and their results included in the response body, the HTTP status code no longer reflects these results.

4. Cleaned Up Error Handling: The error handling for JSON encoding failures is simplified, likely changing from mainLog.Error to a more appropriate level like mainLog.Warning.

Rationale

This change aligns with Kubernetes best practices for liveness probes, which should only fail when the process is completely unresponsive. The benefits include:

• Prevents unnecessary pod restarts due to temporary Redis connectivity issues
• Maintains health status information in the JSON response body for monitoring systems
• Follows the pattern used by the existing /hello endpoint (handled by liveCheckHandler), which already always returns 200 OK

The comment in the readinessHandler function confirms this approach:

// Unlike liveCheckHandler which always returns 200 OK, readinessHandler returns 503 Service Unavailable
// if the gateway is not ready to serve requests

Impact

• Monitoring systems that rely on HTTP status codes from the liveness endpoint will need to be updated to inspect the response body instead
• Kubernetes liveness probes will no longer restart pods when Redis connectivity fails temporarily
• The change maintains backward compatibility in terms of the response body format

Conclusion

This is a targeted change that affects only the HTTP status code returned by the liveness endpoint, not the actual health check logic or information provided in the response. It's a sensible change for Kubernetes environments where pod lifecycle should be managed more conservatively.

---

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Performance Impact Reviewer Prompt

[github-actions]

PR Review: Reverting /hello endpoint to always return 200 status code

This PR simplifies the health check handling in the Tyk Gateway by removing unused functions and ensuring the /hello endpoint always returns a 200 status code, regardless of the actual health check status.

Key Changes

1. Removal of Unused Functions: The PR removes the evaluateHealthChecks and determineHealthStatus functions from gateway/health_check.go, which were not being used by the liveness handler.

2. Simplified Health Check Logic: The health check status evaluation in the liveCheckHandler method is simplified, but still maintains the ability to report the actual health status in the response body.

3. Consistent HTTP Status Code: The /hello endpoint now consistently returns HTTP 200 OK, which aligns with Kubernetes best practices for liveness probes that should only fail when the process is completely unresponsive.

4. Error Handling Cleanup: The PR removes error logging for JSON encoding failures, which simplifies the code but might slightly reduce observability.

Impact Analysis

This change is beneficial for Kubernetes deployments where liveness probes should only restart pods when the application is completely down. By always returning 200 OK but including the actual health status in the response body, monitoring systems can still detect and alert on health issues without triggering unnecessary restarts.

The PR maintains backward compatibility in terms of the response body format, so existing monitoring systems that parse the JSON response will continue to work correctly.

Recommendations

1. Consider adding a comment explaining why the endpoint always returns 200 OK to prevent future developers from "fixing" this behavior.

2. Consider keeping the error logging for JSON encoding failures to maintain observability, as this would help with troubleshooting in case of encoding issues.

3. Update the test case TestLivenessError to expect HTTP 200 instead of HTTP 500 to reflect the new behavior.

Overall, this is a sensible change that aligns with Kubernetes best practices for liveness probes.

---

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Tyk Gateway Dependency Impact Reviewer

[sonarqubecloud]

Quality Gate failed

Failed conditions
61.5% Coverage on New Code (required ≥ 80%)

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