Why Traffic Classes

Traffic classes exist because not all Steam-related HTTP requests are the same.

The Problem

A simple SDK may treat all requests as one category:

one client
one retry policy
one proxy
one rate limit
one cookie jar

That is easy at first, but it becomes limiting when the SDK grows.

Different Traffic Has Different Needs

Traffic	Needs
Official Web API	keys, typed JSON, retry, rate limit
Public Store page	browser-like headers, Referer, cache, block detection
OpenID verification	callback safety, possible proxy, strict state validation
Future session-like flows	cookies, sticky proxy, low concurrency

SDK Design

steam-go uses explicit traffic classes:

steam.TrafficClassOfficialAPI
steam.TrafficClassPublicStorePage

Then TrafficPolicy can configure behavior per class.

Benefits

• Avoids mixing API and browser-like request behavior.
• Keeps business API methods clean.
• Makes future Store-page support easier.
• Allows safer defaults per traffic type.
• Makes proxy, cookie, and cache behavior explicit.

Example

client, err := steam.NewClient(
    steam.WithTrafficPolicy(
        steam.TrafficClassPublicStorePage,
        steam.TrafficPolicy{
            Cache: &steam.TrafficCachePolicy{
                TTL: time.Minute,
            },
        },
    ),
)

Design Principle

Classify traffic first, then apply the right policy.