Flask-Squeeze is a Flask extension that automatically:

• Minifies responses with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML content
• Compresses responses with brotli, gzip, or deflate, based on browser support (on equal client preference: brotli, then gzip, then deflate)
• Pads compressed dynamic responses with a random length header, which makes BREACH style size measurements harder
• Caches squeezed static files so they don't need to be re-squeezed, in memory and optionally on disk
• Optimizes performance with separate compression levels for static and dynamic content
• Works out-of-the-box - no changes needed to your existing Flask routes or templates

Responses of the app's and blueprints' static endpoints are static, all others are dynamic.

What gets squeezed

A response is left untouched if any of these hold:

• Its status is not 2xx, or it is 204, 205, or 206 (range responses are served as is). Conditional 304 and 412 responses from send_file are re-evaluated against the squeezed representation when its file body and ETag are available.
• Its length is unknown, e.g. a streamed response
• It is smaller than SQUEEZE_MIN_SIZE
• It already has a Content-Encoding
• File delivery is offloaded through X-Sendfile
• It carries integrity metadata (Content-Digest, Repr-Digest, Content-MD5, Digest, Signature, or Signature-Input)
• It is a dynamic response with an application-provided ETag, except files served through send_file

Dynamic responses with application-provided ETags keep their original body and ETag, so existing application conditional handling continues to work without changes to views.

Encoding negotiation respects explicit identity preferences. When no header is supplied, responses stay uncompressed. Eligible responses return an empty 406 if neither a supported encoding nor identity is acceptable. If compression is unavailable (for example, below SQUEEZE_MIN_SIZE or because the response carries integrity metadata), a successful response also returns 406 when identity is forbidden. Existing error, no-content, range, and already encoded responses keep their application behavior.

Squeezed responses that have an ETag get a SHA-256 ETag of the exact bytes served. Existing weak ETags remain weak. Their Accept-Ranges header is removed, since byte ranges refer to the original file. Conditional requests (If-None-Match, If-Modified-Since, If-Match) for static files and files served by regular routes through send_file are answered against the variant's ETag.

Text encoding

Minification only supports UTF-8. Responses that declare another charset are compressed, but not minified. When no charset is declared, UTF-8 is assumed. Invalid UTF-8 or unsupported JavaScript leaves the body unchanged by minification and reports a failure in the minification info header when enabled. A leading byte order mark is removed when minifying.

HTML that does not start with a doctype or an <html>, <head> or <body> tag is minified as a fragment, so partial responses, such as table rows for htmx, keep all their tags.

Table of Contents

• Compatibility
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Contributing

Compatibility

• Works with Python 3.11 to 3.14

Installation

pip install Flask-Squeeze

Quick Start

from flask import Flask
from flask_squeeze import Squeeze

squeeze = Squeeze()


def create_app():
	app = Flask(__name__)

	# Init Flask-Squeeze
	squeeze.init_app(app)

	# Init all other extensions AFTER Flask-Squeeze. Flask runs after_request hooks
	# in reverse order of registration, so Flask-Squeeze then sees their final response.

	return app

That's it! The responses of your Flask app will now get minified and compressed, if the browser supports it. To control how Flask-Squeeze behaves, the following options exist. They are read and validated once in init_app, so set them before calling it. Changes made afterwards have no effect.

Basic Options

Option	Default	Description
SQUEEZE_COMPRESS	True	Enable/disable compression
SQUEEZE_MIN_SIZE	500	Minimum response size (bytes) to compress or minify
SQUEEZE_CACHE_DIR	None	Directory for persistent cache (None = in-memory only)
SQUEEZE_INFO_HEADERS	False	Add the info headers described below to squeezed responses

Unknown SQUEEZE_* keys raise an error in init_app, so a typo in a key name does not go unnoticed.

Each disk cache entry stores metadata and squeezed bytes in one file. Writes use a temporary file in the same directory, then atomically replace the cache file. A thread lock synchronizes access within each cache instance; separate processes can overwrite one another without filesystem locks. Invalid or incompatible cache files are deleted on startup and rebuilt on the next request. Cache identity includes squeezing dependency versions and options, so upgrades invalidate incompatible entries.

Info headers

With SQUEEZE_INFO_HEADERS enabled, attempted operations carry:

• X-Flask-Squeeze-Minify: e.g. status=minified; before=1400; after=1000; duration=0.3ms; ratio=1.4x
• X-Flask-Squeeze-Compress: e.g. status=compressed; before=1000; after=250; duration=4.1ms; ratio=4.0x; level=11
• X-Flask-Squeeze-Cache: HIT or MISS, on static responses only

before and after are byte counts for that operation. Compression starts from the body retained after minification. If an operation produces more bytes than its input, its output is discarded: the header uses status=skipped_minified_too_large or status=skipped_compressed_too_large, with after showing the rejected output size. Equal-size outputs are applied. Parser or compressor failures retain the input and use status=minification_failed or status=compression_failed, with after=unknown and an error reason. Only successful operations include a ratio. Disabled or inapplicable operations have no info header. When compression is skipped or fails, Content-Encoding and BREACH padding are omitted. If the client forbids identity encoding, the response is an empty 406 with the operation info headers.

On a cache hit, the ratio and duration are the ones measured when the file was squeezed. They expose timing data to every client, so keep them disabled in production.

Minification Options

Option	Default	Description
SQUEEZE_MINIFY_CSS	True	Enable CSS minification
SQUEEZE_MINIFY_JS	True	Enable JavaScript minification
SQUEEZE_MINIFY_HTML	True	Enable HTML minification

Compression Levels

Option	Default	Range	Description
SQUEEZE_LEVEL_BROTLI_STATIC	11	0-11	Brotli level for static files
SQUEEZE_LEVEL_BROTLI_DYNAMIC	1	0-11	Brotli level for dynamic content
SQUEEZE_LEVEL_GZIP_STATIC	9	0-9	Gzip level for static files
SQUEEZE_LEVEL_GZIP_DYNAMIC	1	0-9	Gzip level for dynamic content
SQUEEZE_LEVEL_DEFLATE_STATIC	9	0-9	Deflate level for static files
SQUEEZE_LEVEL_DEFLATE_DYNAMIC	1	0-9	Deflate level for dynamic content

If compression and all minification options are disabled, Flask-Squeeze does not register its hook or access the configured cache directory.

Example Configuration

app.config.update(
	{
		"SQUEEZE_CACHE_DIR": "./cache/flask_squeeze/",  # Enable persistent caching
		"SQUEEZE_MIN_SIZE": 1000,  # Compress or minify responses of at least 1000 bytes
	}
)

Logging

Flask-Squeeze logs through the standard logging module under the flask_squeeze logger. It emits DEBUG records explaining why each response was or was not squeezed. To see them, configure the logger in your app:

import logging

logging.getLogger("flask_squeeze").setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

The records then go to whatever handlers your application has configured, e.g. via logging.basicConfig().

Contributing

Development, issues, and pull requests are hosted on Forgejo. The GitHub repository is a read-only mirror.

1. Report bugs by opening an issue
2. Submit pull requests with improvements
3. Improve documentation

Development Setup

git clone https://git.budgetflow.cc/mkrd/flask-squeeze.git
cd flask-squeeze
uv sync
uv run playwright install chromium  # Needed once, for the browser test
just check  # Format, lint, type check and test

The browser test starts and stops its own localhost HTTP server on an available port.

Start reading at ResponseSqueezer.after_request in flask_squeeze/extension.py.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.