January 3, 2026
Secret headers, loud feelings
X-Clacks-Overhead
Fans slip a secret tribute into the web, sparking nerd love and nitpick wars
TLDR: A blogger added a hidden “GNU Terry Pratchett” tribute to every page, igniting warm fan reactions and playful debates. Supporters love the whimsy; nitpickers flagged a deprecated header and argued protocol details, proving tiny web traditions can stir big emotions and keep beloved names alive.
A quiet love letter to Sir Terry Pratchett just set the internet’s nerd heart aflutter. A blogger added an invisible message — the X‑Clacks‑Overhead header saying “GNU Terry Pratchett” — to every page on hleb.dev, a nod to the Discworld “Clacks” tradition of keeping names alive. It’s a hidden line you can only see in your browser’s “Network” panel or by running curl. Cue sentiment, jokes, and… yes, pedantry.
Fans piled in with wholesome vibes, quoting “A man never truly dies…” while others celebrated goofy web easter eggs that make the internet feel human. But the peanut gallery sharpened their quills: one commenter spotted a deprecated “Report‑To” header lurking alongside the tribute, turning the memorial into a standards firefight. Another declared it “the most important HTTP header”, prompting a protocol correction squad to remind everyone that Clacks isn’t even HTTP. Meanwhile, one blogger flexed with a rotating “clackset” of names, turning each page load into a memorial roulette via a public config. It’s equal parts tears, memes, and nitpicks — proof that tiny, “useless” details can spark big feelings and bigger debates.
Key Points
- •The author added the X-Clacks-Overhead HTTP response header to their site as a tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett.
- •The blog is hosted on Cloudflare Pages, which supports custom headers via a _headers file in the site root.
- •A rule in the _headers file sets X-Clacks-Overhead: "GNU Terry Pratchett" for all paths (/*).
- •The header applies to all static assets and HTML responses served by the site.
- •Users can verify the header via browser developer tools or by running curl -I https://hleb.dev; it has no performance or functional impact.