Routing: Match Priority Explained
Understand why exact matches beat parameterized routes and why parameterized routes beat wildcard routes. The gateway evaluates all defined paths against the
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Understand why exact matches beat parameterized routes and why parameterized routes beat wildcard routes. The gateway evaluates all defined paths against the
Understand why exact matches beat parameterized routes and why parameterized routes beat wildcard routes. The gateway evaluates all defined paths against the incoming request and selects the most specific match. This page explains the priority algorithm so you can predict which route handles any given request.
Last reviewed: 2026-03-06
Use the routing guides when you need to understand how the gateway matches incoming requests to configured paths. Routing is the core behavior of the gateway -- every request passes through the path matcher before reaching an integration, auth check, or static response.
The gateway supports three route shapes: exact paths (/health), parameterized paths (/users/:id), and wildcard paths (/proxy/{.+}). Exact matches take highest priority.
When multiple routes could match a request, the gateway uses a fixed priority order: exact > parameterized > wildcard. This is not configurable.
The method field accepts standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, etc.) as well as ANY, which matches all methods on that path.
Prefix add/remove rules transform the path before forwarding to the upstream, letting you decouple public API structure from backend path layout.
Static response routes skip integration entirely and return the response field directly, which is useful for health checks and feature flags.
{
"servers": [
{ "alias": "upstream", "url": "https://api.example.com/base" }
],
"paths": [
{
"method": "GET",
"path": "/proxy/{.+}",
"integration": {
"type": "http_proxy",
"server": "upstream"
}
}
]
}This snippet defines a wildcard route, which has the lowest priority. If you add an exact path like "/proxy/health" in a separate entry, it will always match before this wildcard, regardless of definition order in the config.
If a request hits the wrong route, check whether a wildcard pattern is matching before your intended exact or parameterized route -- exact always wins over wildcard.
If an OPTIONS request returns unexpected results, verify whether you have an explicit OPTIONS handler for that path or are relying on the default CORS 204 behavior.
If prefix removal produces a double-slash in the upstream URL, confirm that both the remove_prefix and the upstream url do not include trailing/leading slashes that conflict.
Use wrangler tail and look at the matched path in the log output to confirm which route config entry the gateway selected.
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