Quiver

A pure Swift implementation of QUIC (RFC 9000), HTTP/3 (RFC 9114), QPACK (RFC 9204), and WebTransport — built with modern Swift concurrency.

Note

This project is AI-generated and human-validated. The code was produced with the assistance of AI tooling (Claude) and reviewed, tested, and validated by Nassim Zen (@hironichu).

Overview

Quiver provides a complete, type-safe QUIC stack designed for modern Swift applications. From low-level packet processing to high-level HTTP/3 servers and WebTransport sessions, every layer is built with async/await, Sendable types, and structured concurrency.

Highlights

Full QUIC transport — RFC 9000/9001/9002 compliant with TLS 1.3, 0-RTT, connection migration, and congestion control
HTTP/3 server & client — RFC 9114 with routing, request/response API, and QPACK header compression
WebTransport — Bidirectional/unidirectional streams and datagrams over HTTP/3, compatible with browsers (Chrome) and Deno
Pure Swift — No C dependencies for protocol logic; uses Apple's swift-crypto ecosystem

Features

Layer	Capabilities
QUIC Transport	Long/Short headers, all 19 frame types, coalesced packets, version negotiation, retry, stateless reset
TLS 1.3	Full handshake state machine, X.509 validation (EKU/SAN/NameConstraints), 0-RTT early data, session resumption, key update
Streams	Bidirectional & unidirectional, flow control, priority scheduling (RFC 9218), out-of-order reassembly
Recovery	RTT estimation, loss detection (packet/time threshold), NewReno congestion control, pacing, ECN, anti-amplification
HTTP/3	Frame codec, SETTINGS negotiation, request routing, streaming responses, Extended CONNECT
QPACK	Static table, literal encoding, Huffman codec (RFC 9204)
WebTransport	Session management, bidi/uni streams, datagrams, capsule protocol, browser & Deno compatibility
Security	Integer overflow protection, ACK range validation, bounded iteration, graceful shutdown, continuation leak prevention

Requirements

Swift 6.0+
macOS 15.0+ / Linux (Ubuntu 22.04+)

Installation

Add Quiver to your Package.swift:

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/hironichu/quiver.git", branch: "main")
]

Then add the products you need:

.target(
    name: "MyApp",
    dependencies: [
        .product(name: "QUIC", package: "Quiver"),     // Full QUIC stack
        .product(name: "HTTP3", package: "Quiver"),     // HTTP/3 + WebTransport
        .product(name: "QPACK", package: "Quiver"),     // Header compression
        .product(name: "QUICCore", package: "Quiver"),  // Core types only
    ]
)

Dependencies

swift-crypto — Cryptographic operations
swift-certificates — X.509 certificate handling
swift-asn1 — ASN.1 encoding/decoding
swift-log — Structured logging
swift-nio-udp — UDP transport

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  WebTransport (Sessions, Streams, Datagrams)                │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  HTTP/3 (Server, Client, Router, Extended CONNECT)          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  QPACK (Header Compression, Static Table, Huffman)          │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  QUIC Endpoint (Server/Client Entry Point)                  │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ManagedConnection (High-Level Connection API)              │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ConnectionRouter (DCID-based Packet Routing)               │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  QUICConnectionHandler (Connection State Machine)           │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Stream Management (Multiplexing, Flow Control, Priority)   │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Recovery (Loss Detection, Congestion Control, Pacing)      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Packet Codec (Encoding/Decoding, Header Protection)        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Frame Codec (All 19 QUIC Frame Types + HTTP/3 Frames)      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Crypto (TLS 1.3, AEAD, Key Derivation, X.509)             │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Core Types (Varint, ConnectionID, Version, Headers)        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  UDP Transport (swift-nio-udp)                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Module Structure

quiver/
├── Sources/
│   ├── QUIC/                    # High-level public API
│   │   ├── QUICEndpoint.swift         # Server/client endpoint
│   │   ├── ManagedConnection.swift    # Connection with async streams
│   │   ├── ManagedStream.swift        # Stream wrapper
│   │   ├── ConnectionRouter.swift     # DCID-based routing
│   │   ├── PacketProcessor.swift      # Encryption/decryption
│   │   └── QUICConfiguration.swift    # Configuration options
│   │
│   ├── QUICCore/                # Core types (no I/O)
│   │   ├── Packet/                    # Headers, ConnectionID, Version
│   │   ├── Frame/                     # All 19 frame types + codec
│   │   └── Varint.swift               # Variable-length integers
│   │
│   ├── QUICCrypto/              # TLS 1.3 & cryptography
│   │   ├── TLS/                       # Handshake state machine
│   │   │   ├── TLS13Handler.swift     # Full TLS 1.3 implementation
│   │   │   └── X509/                  # Certificate validation
│   │   ├── AEAD.swift                 # AES-GCM, ChaCha20-Poly1305
│   │   ├── HeaderProtection.swift     # Packet header protection
│   │   └── KeySchedule.swift          # HKDF key derivation
│   │
│   ├── QUICConnection/          # Connection management
│   │   ├── ConnectionState.swift      # State machine
│   │   ├── QUICConnectionHandler.swift
│   │   └── PathValidationManager.swift
│   │
│   ├── QUICStream/              # Stream management
│   │   ├── DataStream.swift           # Send/receive state machines
│   │   ├── StreamManager.swift        # Multiplexing & lifecycle
│   │   ├── FlowController.swift       # Flow control
│   │   └── DataBuffer.swift           # Out-of-order reassembly
│   │
│   ├── QUICRecovery/            # Loss detection & congestion
│   │   ├── LossDetector.swift         # Packet loss detection
│   │   ├── AckManager.swift           # ACK generation & tracking
│   │   ├── RTTEstimator.swift         # RTT measurement
│   │   └── NewRenoCongestionController.swift
│   │
│   ├── QUICTransport/           # UDP integration
│   │
│   ├── QPACK/                   # Header compression (RFC 9204)
│   │   ├── QPACKEncoder.swift
│   │   ├── QPACKDecoder.swift
│   │   ├── StaticTable.swift
│   │   └── HuffmanCodec.swift
│   │
│   └── HTTP3/                   # HTTP/3 (RFC 9114)
│       ├── HTTP3Server.swift          # Server with routing
│       ├── HTTP3Client.swift          # Connection-pooling client
│       ├── HTTP3Connection.swift      # HTTP/3 connection manager
│       ├── HTTP3Settings.swift        # SETTINGS negotiation
│       ├── Frame/                     # HTTP/3 frame codec
│       ├── Stream/                    # HTTP/3 stream types
│       └── WebTransport/             # WebTransport support
│           ├── WebTransportConfiguration.swift # Unified config
│           ├── WebTransportServer.swift
│           ├── WebTransportClient.swift
│           ├── WebTransportSession.swift
│           ├── WebTransportStream.swift
│           └── WebTransportCapsule.swift
│
├── Examples/
│   ├── QUICEchoServer/          # QUIC echo demo
│   ├── HTTP3Demo/               # HTTP/3 server & client
│   └── WebTransportDemo/        # WebTransport echo (bidi/uni/datagram)
│
└── Tests/
    ├── QUICCoreTests/
    ├── QUICCryptoTests/
    ├── QUICRecoveryTests/
    ├── QUICStreamTests/
    ├── QUICTests/
    ├── QPACKTests/
    ├── HTTP3Tests/
    └── QUICBenchmarks/

Usage

QUIC Server & Client

import QUIC

// Server: Accept incoming connections
let server = QUICEndpoint(role: .server)
try await server.start(address: SocketAddress(ipAddress: "0.0.0.0", port: 4433))

for try await connection in server.incomingConnections {
    Task {
        for try await stream in connection.incomingStreams {
            let data = try await stream.read()
            try await stream.write(data) // Echo back
            try await stream.closeWrite()
        }
    }
}

// Client: Connect and send data
let client = QUICEndpoint(role: .client)
let connection = try await client.connect(
    to: SocketAddress(ipAddress: "127.0.0.1", port: 4433)
)
let stream = try await connection.openStream()
try await stream.write(requestData)
try await stream.closeWrite()
let response = try await stream.read()
await connection.shutdown()

HTTP/3 Server

import HTTP3

let server = HTTP3Server()

// Register routes
server.route("GET", "/") { request, context in
    return HTTP3Response(status: 200, body: Data("Hello, HTTP/3!".utf8))
}

server.route("GET", "/json") { request, context in
    let json = Data(#"{"message": "quiver"}"#.utf8)
    return HTTP3Response(
        status: 200,
        headers: [("content-type", "application/json")],
        body: json
    )
}

try await server.listen(host: "0.0.0.0", port: 4433)

HTTP/3 Client

import HTTP3

let client = HTTP3Client()
let response = try await client.get("https://localhost:4433/json")
print("Status: \(response.status)")
print("Body: \(String(data: response.body, encoding: .utf8)!)")

WebTransport Server

import HTTP3
import QUIC

// Unified config — QUIC + WebTransport in one struct
let config = WebTransportConfiguration(
    quic: myQuicConfig,
    maxSessions: 4
)

// One-call static factory
let server = try await WebTransportServer.listen(
    host: "0.0.0.0",
    port: 4433,
    configuration: config,
    serverOptions: .init(allowedPaths: ["/echo"])
)

for await session in server.incomingSessions {
    Task {
        // Handle bidirectional streams
        for await stream in await session.incomingBidirectionalStreams {
            let data = try await stream.read()
            try await stream.write(data) // Echo
        }
    }
    Task {
        // Handle datagrams
        for await datagram in await session.incomingDatagrams {
            try await session.sendDatagram(datagram)
        }
    }
}

WebTransport Client

import HTTP3
import QUIC

// One-call connect — creates QUIC endpoint, dials, sets up HTTP/3, sends Extended CONNECT
let config = WebTransportConfiguration(quic: myQuicConfig)
let session = try await WebTransportClient.connect(
    url: "https://example.com:4433/echo",
    configuration: config
)

// Open a bidirectional stream
let stream = try await session.openBidirectionalStream()
try await stream.write(Data("Hello, WebTransport!".utf8))
let response = try await stream.read()

// Send a datagram
try await session.sendDatagram(Data("ping".utf8))

Frame Encoding/Decoding

import QUICCore

let codec = StandardFrameCodec()

// Encode
let frames: [Frame] = [
    .ping,
    .ack(AckFrame(
        largestAcknowledged: 100,
        ackDelay: 10,
        ackRanges: [AckRange(gap: 0, rangeLength: 5)]
    )),
    .stream(StreamFrame(streamID: 4, offset: 0, data: payload, fin: false))
]
let encoded = try codec.encodeFrames(frames)

// Decode
let decoded = try codec.decodeFrames(from: encoded)

Performance

Benchmarks measured on Apple Silicon (arm64-apple-macosx):

Category	Operation	Throughput
Packet	Short header parsing	4.7M ops/sec
Packet	Long header parsing	1.4M ops/sec
Packet	DCID extraction	6.5–21.2M ops/sec
Core	Varint encode/decode	3.4–12.5M ops/sec
Core	ConnectionID equality	42.3M ops/sec
Frame	PING encode/decode	22–24M ops/sec
Frame	STREAM frame encoding	2.1M ops/sec
Crypto	Initial key derivation	23K ops/sec
Recovery	Loss detection	26K ops/sec
Recovery	Full ACK cycle	1.9M pkts/sec
Recovery	Multi-range ACK (25)	4.8K ops/sec

swift test --filter QUICBenchmarks

Testing

383+ tests covering all layers:

# Run all tests
swift test

# Run specific suites
swift test --filter QUICCoreTests      # Core types & codecs
swift test --filter QUICCryptoTests    # Crypto & TLS 1.3
swift test --filter QUICRecoveryTests  # Loss detection & congestion
swift test --filter QUICStreamTests    # Stream management
swift test --filter QUICTests          # Integration tests
swift test --filter QPACKTests         # QPACK header compression
swift test --filter HTTP3Tests         # HTTP/3 + WebTransport
swift test --filter QUICBenchmarks     # Performance benchmarks

Interoperability

Self-contained loopback tests validate the full QUIC stack end-to-end — real UDP sockets, real TLS 1.3, no external dependencies:

swift test --filter "Loopback"   # Server + client on 127.0.0.1

Verified against browsers and runtimes:

Implementation	Status
Chrome	✅ WebTransport (bidi/uni streams, datagrams)
Deno (web-transport-rs)	✅ WebTransport (bidi/uni streams, datagrams)

RFC Compliance

Transport (RFC 9000)

Section 2–4: Stream types, state machines, flow control
Section 8.1: Anti-amplification limit (3x before address validation)
Section 12.4: Varint-encoded frame types
Section 14.1: Initial packet minimum size (1200 bytes)
Section 17: Long and Short header formats
Section 19: All 19 frame types

TLS (RFC 9001)

Section 5.2: Initial secrets derivation
Section 5.4: Header protection
Section 5.8: Retry integrity tag
Section 6: Key Update with AEAD limit tracking

Recovery (RFC 9002)

Section 6: Loss detection (packet/time threshold, PTO)
Section 7: NewReno congestion control with pacing

HTTP/3 (RFC 9114)

Frame codec (DATA, HEADERS, SETTINGS, GOAWAY, etc.)
SETTINGS negotiation
Unidirectional control streams
Request/response lifecycle

QPACK (RFC 9204)

Static table
Literal-only encoding/decoding
Integer and string primitives
Huffman codec

Additional RFCs

RFC 9218: Extensible priority scheme (urgency 0–7, incremental)
RFC 9220: Extended CONNECT for WebTransport
RFC 9297: Capsule protocol

Security Hardening

Integer overflow protection with saturating arithmetic
ACK range underflow and count validation
PATH_CHALLENGE/PATH_RESPONSE 8-byte enforcement
Flow control violation detection
DCID length validation (0–20 bytes)
Double-start prevention in handshake
Race condition prevention in shutdown paths
Graceful shutdown with continuation leak prevention

Examples

The Examples/ directory contains ready-to-run demos:

Example	Description
QUICEchoServer	Basic QUIC echo server and client
HTTP3Demo	HTTP/3 server with routing and client
WebTransportDemo	WebTransport echo (bidi streams, uni streams, datagrams)

# Run the echo server
swift run QUICEchoServer

# Run the HTTP/3 demo
swift run HTTP3Demo

# Run the WebTransport demo
swift run WebTransportDemo

See Examples/EXAMPLES.md for detailed usage and API reference.

Documentation

Document	Description
Examples/EXAMPLES.md	Detailed examples with API reference
RFC_COMPLIANCE.md	Comprehensive RFC compliance documentation
Docs/RFC9114-HTTP3.md	HTTP/3 implementation notes

References

RFC 9000 — QUIC: A UDP-Based Multiplexed and Secure Transport
RFC 9001 — Using TLS to Secure QUIC
RFC 9002 — QUIC Loss Detection and Congestion Control
RFC 9114 — HTTP/3
RFC 9204 — QPACK: Field Compression for HTTP/3
RFC 9218 — Extensible Prioritization Scheme for HTTP
RFC 9220 — Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/3
RFC 9297 — HTTP Datagrams and the Capsule Protocol

Credits

The QUIC transport layer (RFC 9000/9001/9002) was originally authored by @1amageek.

The HTTP/3 (RFC 9114), QPACK (RFC 9204), WebTransport, and surrounding infrastructure (recovery hardening, interop testing, browser/Deno compatibility, examples, CI, and documentation) were implemented by Nassim Zen (@hironichu).

License

MIT License

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
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.github/workflows		.github/workflows
Docs		Docs
Examples		Examples
Scripts		Scripts
Sources		Sources
Tests		Tests
assets		assets
certs		certs
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
Package.swift		Package.swift
README.md		README.md
RFC_COMPLIANCE.md		RFC_COMPLIANCE.md

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Quiver

Overview

Highlights

Features

Requirements

Installation

Dependencies

Architecture

Module Structure

Usage

QUIC Server & Client

HTTP/3 Server

HTTP/3 Client

WebTransport Server

WebTransport Client

Frame Encoding/Decoding

Performance

Testing

Interoperability

RFC Compliance

Transport (RFC 9000)

TLS (RFC 9001)

Recovery (RFC 9002)

HTTP/3 (RFC 9114)

QPACK (RFC 9204)

Additional RFCs

Security Hardening

Examples

Documentation

References

Credits

License

Contributing

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