A request’s journey.
SIMPLIFIED REQUEST LIFECYCLEConnect
TCP, TLS & QUIC
Protect
Global middleware
Route
Virtual host lookup
Process
Guards & rewrites
Cache
L1 memory + L2 disk
Serve
Static, PHP or proxy
The public request path
HTTP, HTTPS and optional HTTP/3 listeners route requests by host. Global middleware handles recovery, request identifiers, security headers, compression and other shared concerns.
Domain-level decisions
IP rules, access controls, WAF and bandwidth checks apply per domain. The rewrite engine and cache lookup run before dispatch to a static, PHP, reverse-proxy or redirect handler.
Memory meets disk
L1 memory and L2 disk store cacheable responses. ESI, tag purge and stale handling support more sophisticated content delivery without installing a separate caching service.
A private control plane
The dashboard, REST admin API and MCP server are management interfaces. The upstream defaults bind management listeners to loopback; public sites use separate listeners.
Managed workloads
PHP-FPM, native runtimes, databases and containers remain separate processes where required. UWAS coordinates their routing and administration; they are not embedded language runtimes.
Configuration that can change
A YAML entry point, optional domain includes and CLI validation keep intent visible. Reloads rebuild per-domain handling while the service continues to run.