Articles/HTTP

Content-Type Header Explained

What the HTTP Content-Type header does and when it's used.

Published October 13, 2026

The Content-Type header declares the media type (MIME type) of the request or response body, like application/json or text/html.

Key points

  • Determines how the receiving side should parse the body
  • A mismatched Content-Type (e.g. sending JSON but declaring text/plain) is a common source of parsing bugs
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