> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.featherframework.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Health checks

> Three endpoints registered on every app, for load balancers, Kubernetes probes and the Docker healthcheck.

Feather registers these on every app. You do not write them.

| Endpoint        | Purpose           | What it checks                                  |
| --------------- | ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| `/health`       | Full health check | Database connectivity, app running              |
| `/health/live`  | Liveness probe    | The process is alive — always 200 if responding |
| `/health/ready` | Readiness probe   | The app can serve traffic — database connected  |

## Liveness versus readiness

**Liveness** answers "is the process alive?" If this fails, the container should be
restarted. **Readiness** answers "can it handle requests?" If this fails, stop sending
traffic but do not restart.

Example: your app is running but the database is down. Liveness passes because the
process is alive; readiness fails because it cannot serve requests. The load balancer
stops routing to this instance while it recovers.

## Response format

```json theme={null}
{
  "status": "healthy",
  "timestamp": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z",
  "checks": {
    "database": "ok"
  }
}
```

Returns `200 OK` when healthy and `503 Service Unavailable` when not.

## Wiring it up

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Load balancer">
    For AWS ALB, GCP and similar:

    | Setting             | Value      |
    | ------------------- | ---------- |
    | Health check path   | `/health`  |
    | Healthy threshold   | 2          |
    | Unhealthy threshold | 3          |
    | Interval            | 30 seconds |
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Kubernetes">
    ```yaml theme={null}
    livenessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /health/live
        port: 8000
      initialDelaySeconds: 5
      periodSeconds: 10

    readinessProbe:
      httpGet:
        path: /health/ready
        port: 8000
      initialDelaySeconds: 5
      periodSeconds: 10
    ```
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Docker">
    The generated Dockerfile already has `HEALTHCHECK ... curl /health`, and
    `deploy/deploy.sh` waits on it before declaring a deploy finished. Most PaaS hosts
    either detect `/health` or take it as a configured health-check path.
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

<Tip>
  Prefer `/health` over a hand-written route. A container with a broken `DATABASE_URL`
  reports unhealthy instead of quietly serving 500s.
</Tip>

<Note>
  Apps scaffolded before 0.9.7 also have a `routes/api/health.py` giving `/api/health`.
  That route is yours, not the framework's, and it only proves the process is listening.
  Point new health checks at `/health`.
</Note>