This specification defines the preload keyword that may be used with link elements. This keyword provides a declarative fetch primitive that initiates an early fetch and separates fetching from resource execution.
This is a work in progress and may change without any notices.
Implementers SHOULD be aware that this document is not stable. Implementers who are not taking part in the discussions are likely to find the specification changing out from under them in incompatible ways. Vendors interested in implementing this document before it eventually reaches the Candidate Recommendation stage SHOULD join the mailing lists below and take part in the discussions.
The terms link, inserted into a document, resolve, url, crossorigin, origin, delay the load event, external resource link, valid media query list, queue a task, fetch and process the linked resource, match the environment, and process the linked resource are defined in [[HTML]].
The terms Document, Content-Type metadata, fire an event , in a document tree and node document are defined in [[!DOM]].
The terms request destination and network error are defined in [[!FETCH]].
The terms parsable MIME type and unsupported MIME type are defined in [[!MIMESNIFF]].
The term prefetch is defined in [[RESOURCE-HINTS]].
The terms integrity metadata and verification of HTML document subresources are defined in [[SRI]].
Many applications require fine-grained control over when resources are fetched, processed, and applied to the document. For example, the loading and processing of some resources may be deferred by the application to reduce resource contention and improve performance of the initial load. This behavior is typically achieved by moving resource fetching into custom resource loading logic defined by the application - i.e. resource fetches are initiated via injected elements, or via `XMLHttpRequest`, when particular application conditions are met.
However, there are also cases where some resources need to be fetched as early as possible, but their processing and execution logic is subject to application-specific requirements - e.g. dependency management, conditional loading, ordering guarantees, and so on. Currently, it is not possible to deliver this behavior without a performance penalty.
The preload keyword on link elements provides a declarative fetch primitive that addresses the above use case of initiating an early fetch and separating fetching from resource execution. As such, preload keyword serves as a low-level primitive that enables applications to build custom resource loading and execution behaviors without hiding resources from the user agent and incurring delayed resource fetching penalties.
For example, the application can use the preload keyword to initiate early, high-priority, and non-render-blocking fetch of a CSS resource that can then be applied by the application at appropriate time:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<!-- preload stylesheet resource via declarative markup -->
<link rel="preload" href="/styles/other.css" as="style">
<!-- or, preload stylesheet resource via JavaScript -->
<script>
var res = document.createElement("link");
res.rel = "preload";
res.as = "style";
res.href = "styles/other.css";
document.head.appendChild(res);
</script>
Link: <https://example.com/other/styles.css>; rel=preload; as=style
As above examples illustrate, the resource can be specified via declarative markup, Link HTTP header ([[!RFC5988]]), or scheduled via JavaScript. See use cases section for more hands-on examples of how and where preload can be used.
preload"The preload keyword may be used with link elements. This keyword creates an external resource link (preload link) that is used to declare a resource and its fetch properties.
If the preload keyword is used as an optimization to initiate earlier fetch then no additional feature detection checks are necessary: browsers that support preload will initiate earlier fetch, and those that do not will ignore it and fetch the resource as previously. Otherwise, if the application intends to rely on preload to fetch the resource, then it can execute a feature detection check to verify that it is supported.
Both prefetch and `preload` declare a resource and its fetch properties, but differ in how and when the resource is fetched by the user agent: prefetch is an optional and often low-priority fetch for a resource that might be used by a subsequent navigation; `preload` is a mandatory fetch for a resource that is necessary for the current navigation. Developers should use each one accordingly to minimize resource contention and optimize load performance.
The appropriate times to fetch and process the linked resource are:
The user agent SHOULD abort the current request if the `href` attribute of the link element of a preload link is changed, removed, or its value is set to an empty string.
At these times, the user agent must fetch and process the linked resource given by the link element.
Obtaining the resource given by a preload link element MUST NOT delay the load event of the element's node document.
Once a preload resource has been processed, the user agent must add the response to the preload cache. The user agent must also add responses that are network errors to the preload cache.
It is important that network errors be added to the preload cache so that if a preload request results in an error, the erroneous response isn't re-requested from the network later. This also has security implications; consider the case where a developer specifies subresource integrity metadata on a preload request, but not the following resource request. If the preload request fails subresource integrity verification and is discarded, the resource request will fetch and consume a potentially-malicious response from the network without verifying its integrity [[!SRI]].
In addition to the HTTP cache, all browser implementations provide one or more levels of additional caches, which sometimes live before the HTTP cache (e.g. server push responses are typically not committed to HTTP cache until a client request is made), and after the HTTP cache (e.g. in-process memory caches). These caches are not defined today and need to be defined in Fetch API— see [related discussion](https://github.com/whatwg/fetch/issues/354).
Conceptually, a preloaded response ought to be committed to the HTTP cache, as it is initiated by the client, and also be available in the memory cache and be re-usable at least once within the lifetime of a fetch group.
The user agent MUST NOT automatically execute or apply the resource against the current page context.
For example, if a JavaScript resource is fetched via a preload link and the response contains a `no-cache` directive, the fetched response is retained by the user agent and is made immediately available when fetched with a matching same navigation request at a later time - e.g. via a `script` tag or other means. This ensures that the user agent does not incur an unnecessary revalidation, or a duplicate download, between the initial resource fetch initiated via the preload link and a later fetch requesting the same resource.
[[HTML]] defines the `as` content and IDL attributes. The attribute is necessary to guarantee correct prioritization, request matching, application of the correct [[CSP3]] policy, and setting of the appropriate `Accept` request header.
When the resource is declared via the `Link` header field ([[!RFC5988]]), the resource's `as` attribute is defined via the `as` link-extension target attribute. ([[!RFC5988]] section 5.4)
Example directives to preload a resource that will be consumed by...
| consumer | Preload directive |
|---|---|
<audio> |
<link rel=preload as=audio href=...> |
<video> |
<link rel=preload as=video href=...> |
<track> |
<link rel=preload as=track href=...> |
<script>, Worker's
importScripts |
<link rel=preload as=script href=...> |
<link rel=stylesheet>, CSS @import
|
<link rel=preload as=style href=...> |
| CSS @font-face | <link rel=preload as=font href=...> |
<img>, <picture>,
srcset, imageset |
<link rel=preload as=image href=...> |
SVG's <image>, CSS *-image |
<link rel=preload as=image href=...> |
| XHR, fetch | <link rel=preload as=fetch crossorigin href=...> |
| Worker, SharedWorker | <link rel=preload as=worker href=...> |
<embed> |
<link rel=preload as=embed href=...> |
<object> |
<link rel=preload as=object href=...> |
<iframe>, <frame> |
<link rel=preload as=document
href=...> |
HTTP/2 ([[!RFC7540]]) and HTTP/3 allow a server to pre-emptively send ("push") responses to the client. A pushed response is semantically equivalent to a server responding to a request and, similar to a preloaded response, is retained by the user agent and executed by the application when matched with a request initiated by the application. As such, from an application perspective, there is no difference between consuming a preload or a server push response.
The server MAY initiate server push for preload link resources defined by the application for which it is authoritative. Initiating server push eliminates the request roundtrip between client and server for the declared preload link resource. Optionally, if the use of server push is not desired for a resource declared via the `Link` header field ([[!RFC5988]]), the developer MAY provide an opt-out signal to the server via the `nopush` target attribute ([[!RFC5988]] section 5.4). For example:
Link: </app/style.css>; rel=preload; as=style; nopush Link: </app/script.js>; rel=preload; as=script
The above example indicates to a Server Push capable server that `/app/style.css` should not be pushed (e.g. the origin may have additional information indicating that it may already be in cache), while `/app/script.js` should be considered as a candidate for server push.
Initiating server push for a preload link is an optional optimization. For example, the server might omit initiating push if it believes that the response is available in the client's cache: the client will process the preload directive, check the relevant caches, and initiate the request to the server if the resource is missing. Alternatively, the server might omit initiating push due to operational concerns, such as available server resources or other criteria. Finally, the use of server push is subject to negotiated HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 connection settings: the client may limit or outright disable the use of server push. Applications cannot rely on the availability and use of server push.
There is only one class of product that can claim conformance to this specification: a user agent.
Preload parsers are used by most user agents to initiate early resource fetches while the main document parser is blocked due to a blocking script. However, the preload parsers do not execute JavaScript, and typically only perform a shallow parse of CSS, which means that the fetch of resources specified within JavaScript and CSS is delayed until the relevant document parser is able to process the resource declaration.
In effect, most resources declarations specified within JavaScript and CSS are "hidden" from the speculative parsers and incur a performance penalty. To address this, the application can use a preload link to declaratively specify which resources the user agent must fetch early to improve page performance:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <link rel="preload" href="/assets/font.woff2" as="font" type="font/woff2"> <link rel="preload" href="/style/other.css" as="style"> <link rel="preload" href="//example.com/resource" as="fetch" crossorigin> <link rel="preload" href="https://fonts.example.com/font.woff2" as="font" crossorigin type="font/woff2">
Above markup initiates four resource fetches: a font resource, a stylesheet, an unknown resource type from another origin, and a font resource from another origin. Each fetch is initialized with appropriate request headers and priority - the unknown type is equivalent to a fetch initiated `XMLHttpRequest` request. Further, these requests do not block the parser or the load event.
Preload links for CORS enabled resources, such as fonts or images with a `crossorigin` attribute, must also include a `crossorigin` attribute, in order for the resource to be properly used.
Even though it makes sense to declare preload links early in the HTML source of the document, do not put them before the character encoding declaration, which needs to be seen even earlier.
The preload link can be used by the application to initiate early fetch of one or more resources, as well as to provide custom logic for when and how each response should be applied to the document. The application may:
The preload link provides a low-level and content-type agnostic primitive that enables applications to build custom resource loading and execution behaviors without incurring the penalty of delayed resource loading.
For example, preload link enables the application to provide `async` and `defer` like semantics, which are only available on `script` elements today, but for any content-type: applying the resource immediately after it is available provides `async` functionality, whereas adding some ordering logic enables `defer` functionality. Further, this behavior can be defined across a mix of content-types - the application is in full control over when and how each resource is applied.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<script>
function preloadFinished(e) { ... }
function preloadError(e) { ... }
</script>
<!-- listen for load and error events -->
<link rel="preload" href="app.js" as="script" onload="preloadFinished()" onerror="preloadError()">
By decoupling resource fetching from execution, the preload link provides a future-proof primitive for building performant application specific resource loading strategies.
The preload link can be specified by the developer, or be automatically generated by the application server or an optimization proxy (e.g. a CDN).
Link: <https://example.com/font.woff2>; rel=preload; as=font; type="font/woff2" Link: <https://example.com/app/script.js>; rel=preload; as=script Link: <https://example.com/logo-hires.jpg>; rel=preload; as=image Link: <https://fonts.example.com/font.woff2>; rel=preload; as=font; crossorigin; type="font/woff2"
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <link rel="preload" href="//example.com/widget.html" as="document">
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<script>
var res = document.createElement("link");
res.rel = "preload";
res.as = "document";
res.href = "/other/widget.html";
document.head.appendChild(res);
</script>
The link relation type below has been registered by IANA per Section 6.2.1 of [[!RFC5988]]:
Preload is a declarative fetch primitive that initiates early fetch of resources and separates fetching from resource execution. In effect, it is conceptually similar to initiating a scripted fetch for a resource, but with additional constraints and benefits:
The site authors are encouraged to take the necessary precautions and specify the relevant [[CSP3]], [[MIXED-CONTENT]], and [[REFERRER-POLICY]] rules, such that the browser can enforce them when initiating the preload request. Additionally, if preload directives are provided via the `Link` HTTP response header, then the relevant policies should also be delivered as an HTTP response header - e.g. see Processing Complications for CSP.
This document reuses text from the [[HTML]] specification, edited by Ian Hickson, as permitted by the license of that specification.