cdisc-proxy

An untested caching proxy for the CDISC Library API.

It exists because repeatedly hammering the same upstream endpoint is wasteful, slow, and something only raccoons with a network cable would design.
Badgers reviewed the design. They were unimpressed, but approved it anyway. 🦝🦡

MIT licensed. Use it, fork it, question it.

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What it is

cdisc-proxy is a read-only reverse HTTP proxy with deterministic caching, built specifically for CDISC Library API endpoints.

It sits between your clients and the CDISC API and ensures that:

• identical requests are treated identically
• upstream calls are minimized
• concurrency does not turn into chaos

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What it does

• Proxies GET requests under /api/mdr/...
• Talks to CDISC Library API using an API key
• Canonicalizes requests to avoid cache poisoning
• Uses two-tier caching
  • L1: Redis / Valkey (fast)
  • L2: sled+filesystem blobs or PostgreSQL (durable)
• Uses single-flight request coalescing
• Applies negative caching for errors
• Applies backpressure to upstream calls
• Survives high concurrency without panicking

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What it does not do

• ❌ Write or mutate upstream data
• ❌ Pretend bad upstream responses are your fault
• ❌ Authenticate users beyond an optional shared key
• ❌ Care about badly written clients

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TODO

• Test it
• Break it
• Patch it
• Repeat it

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Installation

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/your-org/cdisc-proxy.git
cd cdisc-proxy
cargo build --release

Binary:

target/release/cdisc-proxy

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Alpine Linux

apk add --no-cache ca-certificates libgcc libstdc++ redis postgresql-client
cp target/release/cdisc-proxy /usr/local/bin/
mkdir -p /etc/conf.d

Run:

cdisc-proxy /etc/conf.d/cdisc-proxy.conf

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Ubuntu / Debian

apt update
apt install -y redis postgresql-client ca-certificates
cp target/release/cdisc-proxy /usr/local/bin/

Run:

cdisc-proxy /etc/cdisc-proxy.yaml

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Docker

FROM alpine:3.20
RUN apk add --no-cache ca-certificates libgcc libstdc++
COPY cdisc-proxy /usr/local/bin/cdisc-proxy
COPY cdisc-proxy.yaml /etc/cdisc-proxy.yaml
EXPOSE 8080
ENTRYPOINT ["/usr/local/bin/cdisc-proxy", "/etc/cdisc-proxy.yaml"]

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Configuration

Example:

server:
  port: 8080
  listen: ["0.0.0.0"]
  auth_key: null

cdisc:
  base_url: "https://library.cdisc.org/api"
  api_key: "REDACTED"

cache:
  l1:
    driver: "redis"
    address: "redis://127.0.0.1:6379"
    ttl: "10m"

  l2:
    storage_path: "/var/lib/cdisc-proxy"
    postgres_dsn: null
    ttl: "30d"
    cleanup_enabled: true
    cleanup_interval: "1h"

scheduler:
  enabled: false
  interval: "1h"

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Endpoints

• GET /api/... — proxied CDISC Library API calls
• GET /health — cached + live health checks

Response header:

X-Cache-Tier: L1-HIT | L2-HIT | MISS

License

MIT.
Do what you want.
If it breaks, check your config before blaming the badgers.

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