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Direct Response

Verified Code examples on this page have been automatically tested and verified.

Serve a fixed status code and response body directly from agentgateway instead of forwarding to a backend.

Attaches to: Route

Note

Agentgateway supports more than one configuration style. Where a feature can also be configured in the simplified llm or mcp modes, the examples on this page show each option in tabs. For more information, see Routing-based configuration .

Directly respond to a request with a custom response using direct responseDirect ResponseA traffic management feature that returns a fixed response (body and status code) directly to the client without forwarding the request to a backend., without forwarding to any backend.

For example, the following configuration returns a 404 Not found! response.

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://agentgateway.dev/schema/config
mcp:
  port: 3000
  policies:
    directResponse:
      body: "Not found!"
      status: 404
  targets:
  - name: everything
    stdio:
      cmd: npx
      args: ["@modelcontextprotocol/server-everything"]

# yaml-language-server: $schema=https://agentgateway.dev/schema/config
gateways:
  default:
    port: 3000
routes:
- policies:
    directResponse:
      body: "Not found!"
      status: 404

Conditional execution​

To return a direct response only when a CEL expression matches, use the conditional field. For example, you can return 410 Gone on deprecated paths and let every other request reach the backend. For details, see Conditional policies.