Default request

The DefaultRequest plugin allows you to configure default parameters for all requests: specify a base URL, add headers, configure query parameters, and so on.

Add dependencies

DefaultRequest only requires the ktor-client-core artifact and doesn't need any specific dependencies.

Install DefaultRequest

To install DefaultRequest, pass it to the install function inside a client configuration block:

import io.ktor.client.*
import io.ktor.client.engine.cio.*
import io.ktor.client.plugins.*
//...
val client = HttpClient(CIO) {
    install(DefaultRequest)
}

Or call the defaultRequest function and configure required request parameters:

import io.ktor.client.*
import io.ktor.client.engine.cio.*
import io.ktor.client.plugins.*
//...
val client = HttpClient(CIO) {
    defaultRequest {
        // this: DefaultRequestBuilder
    }
}

Configure DefaultRequest

Base URL

DefaultRequest allows you to configure a base part of the URL that is merged with a request URL. For example, the url function below specifies a base URL for all requests:

defaultRequest {
    url("https://ktor.io/docs/")
}

If you make the following request using the client with the above configuration, ...

val response: HttpResponse = client.get("welcome.html")

... the resulting URL will be the following: https://ktor.io/docs/welcome.html. To learn how base and request URLs are merged, see DefaultRequest.

URL parameters

The url function also allows you to specify URL components separately, for example:

an HTTP scheme;
a host name;
a base URL path;
a query parameter.

                url {
                    protocol = URLProtocol.HTTPS
                    host = "ktor.io"
                    path("docs/")
                    parameters.append("token", "abc123")
                }

Headers

To add a specific header to each request, use the header function:

            defaultRequest {
                header("X-Custom-Header", "Hello")
            }

To avoid duplicating headers, you can use the appendIfNameAbsent, appendIfNameAndValueAbsent, and contains functions:

defaultRequest {
    headers.appendIfNameAbsent("X-Custom-Header", "Hello")
}

Unix domain sockets

You can build individual requests with Unix domain sockets, but you can also configure a default request with a socket parameter.

To do that, pass a unixSocket call with the path to the socket to the defaultRequest function, for example:

val client = HttpClient(CIO)

// Sending a single request to a Unix domain socket
val response: HttpResponse = client.get("/") {
    unixSocket("/tmp/test-unix-socket-ktor.sock")
}

// Setting up the socket for all requests from that client
val clientDefault = HttpClient(CIO) {
    defaultRequest {
        unixSocket("/tmp/test-unix-socket-ktor.sock")
    }    
}

val response: HttpResponse = clientDefault.get("/")

Example

The example below uses the following DefaultRequest configuration:

The url function defines an HTTP scheme, a host, a base URL path, and a query parameter.
The header function adds a custom header to all requests.

        val client = HttpClient(CIO) {
            defaultRequest {
                url {
                    protocol = URLProtocol.HTTPS
                    host = "ktor.io"
                    path("docs/")
                    parameters.append("token", "abc123")
                }
                header("X-Custom-Header", "Hello")
            }
        }

The request below made by this client specifies a latter path segment only and applies parameters configured for DefaultRequest automatically:

        val response: HttpResponse = client.get("welcome.html")
        println(response.status)

You can find the full example here: client-default-request.

20 October 2025