README.md

Ngatex: High-Performance API Gateway in Go

Ngatex is a lightweight, cloud-native API Gateway built from the ground up in Go. It provides a high-performance entry point for microservices, offering dynamic routing, load balancing, and deep observability.

🚀 Key Features

• High-Performance Proxying: Built on net/http with optimized connection pooling.
• Dynamic Load Balancing: Supports Round Robin, Least Connections, and Smooth Weighted Round Robin.
• Middleware Pipeline: Pluggable chain for JWT Auth, API Key validation, IP-based Rate Limiting, and Caching.
• Observability: Native Prometheus metrics and structured JSON logging with Request ID correlation.
• Zero-Downtime Reloads: Support for SIGHUP and Admin API reloads using Atomic Pointer Swapping.
• Health Monitoring: Active and passive health checks for upstream services.

🛠️ Getting Started

1. Prerequisites

• Go 1.23+
• Docker (optional)

2. Installation

git clone [https://github.com/your-username/ngatex.git](https://github.com/your-username/ngatex.git)
cd ngatex
make build

3. Running the System

In one terminal, start the mock backend services:

make mock

In another, start the gateway:

make run

📊 Administration & Observability

• Public API: http://localhost:8080
• Admin API: http://localhost:8081
• Prometheus Metrics: http://localhost:8081/metrics

Reloading Configuration

To reload the config.yaml without stopping the process:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8081/reload
# OR send a system signal
kill -HUP <PID>