Install h2spec with Homebrew, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• h2spec

Project history

The repository was created in August 2014, during the final stretch of HTTP/2 standardization. The first GitHub release, v0.0.1, was published in December 2014 as an alpha release, and rapid 0.0.x releases followed with TLS, stream-state, frame, and timeout test coverage.

Version 1.0.0 was published in May 2015, shortly after the publication of RFC 7540 and RFC 7541. Later 1.x releases added HPACK-related tests, section-specific checks, JUnit reporting, performance improvements, and more detailed error handling.

Version 2.0.0 in January 2017 refactored the test cases, added RFC 7541 HPACK tests, added HTTP/2 server tests, dry-run mode, individual test-case execution, and verbose logging. Subsequent 2.x releases tracked Go toolchain changes and fixed conformance details around GOAWAY, frame lengths, HPACK strings, path selection, and TLS cipher selection.

Adoption history

h2spec's adoption came from implementers needing an independent executable check for HTTP/2 behavior. The 2015 HTTP Workshop presentation by Moto Ishizawa described the goal as sharing test cases because HTTP/2 implementations are hard to test.

The tool appears in official and community workflows for server and library validation because it can be installed as a binary, run from Docker, or built from source. Homebrew and Nix packaging made it easy to use in local development and CI jobs.

How it is used

h2spec targets a host and port, optionally over TLS, and can run the entire suite or a single spec section such as `http2/6.3`. Its supported spec IDs include `http2`, `hpack`, and `generic`, and it offers strict mode for SHOULD-level requirements plus JUnit output for CI reporting.

Package users typically run it against a local web server, proxy, HTTP/2 library example server, or appliance endpoint to catch protocol-state, frame-format, stream, HPACK, or error-handling mistakes.

Why package nerds care

h2spec matters because it turned an RFC-reading task into a repeatable CLI check. For package maintainers, it is a small but high-leverage tool: it can validate HTTP/2 support in servers such as H2O, HAProxy, nginx builds, language libraries, and reverse proxies without embedding a full benchmark or browser stack.

Its release history is also a useful map of HTTP/2 implementation pain points: stream states, SETTINGS, GOAWAY, HPACK, TLS, headers, padding, and CI-friendly reporting all show up as packageable conformance concerns.

Timeline

• 2014: Repository created and v0.0.1 alpha released.
• 2015: v1.0.0 released after HTTP/2 and HPACK RFC publication.
• 2015: HTTP Workshop presentation described h2spec as a shared conformance-test tool.
• 2017: v2.0.0 refactored test cases and added HPACK, dry-run, and individual-test execution.
• 2020: v2.6.0 release built with Go 1.14 and refined DATA-frame validation and reports.

Related projects

• Related projects include H2O, nghttp2, HAProxy, HTTP/2 libraries in language ecosystems, the IETF HTTP working group specifications, RFC 7540, RFC 7541, and HPACK test-case collections.

Sources

• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/h2spec
• https://github.com/summerwind/h2spec
• https://github.com/summerwind/h2spec/releases
• https://httpworkshop.org/workshop2015/presentations/moto-h2spec.pdf
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/summerwind/h2spec/master/README.md
• https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7540
• https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7541