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A proxy mode determines how your HTTP client sends requests to Proxy Hopper and how Proxy Hopper forwards them onward. The choice affects whether HTTPS retries are possible.
ModeProtocolHTTPS retriesBest for
HTTP proxyStandard proxy protocolYesGeneral HTTP traffic
CONNECT tunnelHTTP CONNECTNoHTTPS with standard proxy settings
URL forwardingCustom headerYesHTTPS APIs where retries matter

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How to choose

Use HTTP proxy if your traffic is plain HTTP, or if you control your HTTP client and HTTPS retry support isn’t required. Use CONNECT tunnel if you need HTTPS and your client only supports standard proxy settings (e.g. https_proxy env var). Understand that Proxy Hopper cannot retry failed HTTPS requests in this mode — the TLS handshake happens inside the tunnel, which Proxy Hopper cannot inspect. Use URL forwarding if you’re hitting HTTPS APIs and want full retry support. This is the recommended mode for scraping and API polling workloads where resilience matters most.

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Enabling and disabling modes

All three modes are enabled by default. Restrict to specific modes via config: 
server:
  modes:
    - forwarding
    - connect_tunnel
Or via environment variable: 
PROXY_HOPPER_MODES=forwarding,connect_tunnel