middleware.ts

import { NextResponse, type NextRequest } from "next/server";

// Single source of truth for prod-excluded bench slugs. Lives in its
// own module (not here) so the spec loader and the materialize worker
// can import it without pulling next/server. Re-exported for the
// sitemap, which historically imports it from "@/middleware".
import {
  REMOVED_ALTERNATIVE_SLUGS,
  REMOVED_ANSWER_SLUGS,
  REMOVED_BENCH_SLUGS,
  REMOVED_PRODUCT_SLUGS,
} from "@/lib/removed-benches";
export { REMOVED_BENCH_SLUGS };

/**
 * 410 Gone for retired URLs on production. That is all this middleware
 * does, and its matcher is the literal list of those URLs, so it is
 * invoked only on hits to dead pages instead of on every bench, product,
 * answer and compare request (edge middleware invocations are billed
 * per call; before this change roughly half of all site requests paid
 * for one).
 *
 * Mixed-case URLs (`/products/Alchemy`) are no longer 308'd. A regex
 * matcher admitting only uppercase letters worked under `next start`
 * but Vercel's router evaluates matchers case-insensitively, so it
 * fired on every lowercase request too (seen in prod logs after
 * #2343). Next serves the cached lowercase page for a mixed-case URL
 * and the HTML carries the lowercase `<link rel="canonical">`, which
 * is what Google consolidates on; a page-level redirect cannot help
 * because the ISR cache is resolved before the page runs.
 *
 * Everything else that used to live here moved to where it is free or
 * already paid for:
 *   - renamed benches (301): `redirects()` in next.config.ts, served
 *     from the routing layer without a function;
 *   - `/compare/<a>-vs-<b>` alphabetical canonical: the compare page
 *     already redirected non-canonical pairs, the middleware copy was
 *     redundant;
 *   - query stripping on the canonical API routes: inside those
 *     route handlers (they run a function anyway).
 *
 * The matcher must be a literal (Next evaluates it statically), so the
 * list below is generated from the sets in removed-benches.ts and
 * pinned by src/middleware.test.ts: adding a slug to a set without
 * adding its path here fails the test.
 */
const BENCH_PATH = /^\/benchmarks\/([a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]{0,79})\/?$/;
const ANSWER_PATH = /^\/answers\/([a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]{0,79})\/?$/;
const PRODUCT_PATH = /^\/products\/([a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]{0,79})\/?$/;
const ALTERNATIVE_PATH = /^\/alternatives\/([a-z0-9][a-z0-9-]{0,79})\/?$/;

const GONE_BENCH = `<!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><title>410 Gone</title><meta name="robots" content="noindex"></head><body><h1>410 Gone</h1><p>This benchmark has been retired. See the <a href="/benchmarks">current catalog</a>.</p></body></html>`;
const GONE_ALTERNATIVE = `<!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><title>410 Gone</title><meta name="robots" content="noindex"></head><body><h1>410 Gone</h1><p>This alternatives page has been retired because no active benchmark ranks this product against comparable providers. See the <a href="/alternatives">current list</a>.</p></body></html>`;
const GONE_PRODUCT = `<!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><meta charset="utf-8"><title>410 Gone</title><meta name="robots" content="noindex"></head><body><h1>410 Gone</h1><p>This product page has been retired because the provider is no longer measured in any active benchmark. See the <a href="/products">current catalog</a>.</p></body></html>`;

function gone(body: string): NextResponse {
  return new NextResponse(body, {
    status: 410,
    headers: { "Content-Type": "text/html; charset=utf-8" },
  });
}

export function middleware(req: NextRequest) {
  const { pathname } = req.nextUrl;

  // Only fires on production so staging keeps rendering held-back
  // benches for review (REMOVED_BENCH_SLUGS doubles as the staging
  // pipeline). Direct URL hits on prod get the SEO-correct 410.
  if (process.env.VERCEL_ENV !== "production") return NextResponse.next();

  const m = pathname.match(BENCH_PATH);
  const a = pathname.match(ANSWER_PATH);
  if (
    (m && REMOVED_BENCH_SLUGS.has(m[1])) ||
    (a && REMOVED_ANSWER_SLUGS.has(a[1]))
  ) {
    return gone(GONE_BENCH);
  }
  const p = pathname.match(PRODUCT_PATH);
  if (p && REMOVED_PRODUCT_SLUGS.has(p[1])) {
    return gone(GONE_PRODUCT);
  }
  const alt = pathname.match(ALTERNATIVE_PATH);
  if (alt && REMOVED_ALTERNATIVE_SLUGS.has(alt[1])) {
    return gone(GONE_ALTERNATIVE);
  }
  return NextResponse.next();
}

// Generated from removed-benches.ts; see the header comment and
// src/middleware.test.ts. Keep sorted by section, one path per line.
export const config = {
  matcher: [
    "/benchmarks/celo-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/taiko-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/kaia-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/bob-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/bitlayer-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/gravity-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/axelar-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/hedera-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/litecoin-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/soneium-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/zircuit-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/merlin-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/comdex-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/blast-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/swellchain-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/superseed-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/quicksilver-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/thundercore-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/canto-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/neon-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/plume-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/zetachain-rpc",
    "/benchmarks/bridge-revenue",
    "/benchmarks/solana-tx-landing-latency",
    "/benchmarks/indexer-latency",
    "/benchmarks/oracle-freshness",
    "/benchmarks/tokenized-stock-arb-latency",
    "/benchmarks/token-trade-coverage",
    "/benchmarks/cross-chain-messaging-latency",
    "/benchmarks/solana-dex-quote-latency",
    "/benchmarks/explorer-chain-coverage",
    "/benchmarks/portfolio-chain-coverage",
    "/benchmarks/pm-data-freshness",
    "/benchmarks/perp-open-interest",
    "/benchmarks/pm-fee-comparison",
    "/benchmarks/pm-geographic-access",
    "/benchmarks/polymarket-resolution-delay",
    "/benchmarks/indexing-freshness",
    "/answers/which-evm-aggregator-has-the-fastest-quote",
    "/answers/which-solana-rpc-lands-the-most-transactions",
    "/answers/which-solana-dex-aggregator-is-the-fastest",
    "/answers/which-prediction-market-data-api-is-the-freshest",
    "/answers/polymarket-fees-explained",
    "/answers/polymarket-vs-kalshi-fees",
    "/alternatives/chainlink",
    "/alternatives/jupiter",
    "/alternatives/pyth",
    "/products/enso",
    "/products/0x",
    "/products/blast",
    "/products/bitquery",
    "/products/goldrush",
    "/products/zerion",
    "/products/routescan",
  ],
};