hawkhandler

Hawk Handler is a small tool for developers building web services in Go who want to verify that incoming requests come from trusted sources. It implements the Hawk authentication scheme, which is a way for two systems to prove their identity to each other using cryptographic signatures rather than simple passwords or API keys sent in plain text.

When a client wants to talk to your service, it signs its request with a secret key. Your server receives the request and uses this handler to verify that signature. To make that work, you provide a lookup function that matches a client's ID to its secret key. If the signature checks out, the request goes through to your actual application. If not, it gets rejected before your code ever runs.

The typical user is a developer building an API or internal service that needs secure, machine-to-machine communication. For example, if you have a backend service that only certain other services should be able to call, this library provides a straightforward way to enforce that. The example in the README shows a simple "Hello" server protected by Hawk, but the pattern applies to any HTTP endpoint you want to lock down.

The project is lightweight and focused on a single task. It wraps Go's built-in HTTP handling, so it slots into existing server code without requiring a broader framework. The README is minimal, offering just an import statement and a working example, so anyone using it should be comfortable reading Go and understanding how Hawk authentication fits into their security model.