CORS middleware duplicates headers when used in chained proxy servers

[rLukoyanov]

Description

When building a proxy server using Echo (golang) and enabling the built-in middleware.CORS() on each proxy layer, CORS headers are duplicated in the final response.

This happens in a common microservice / gateway setup where:

• multiple Echo-based services act as proxies,
• each service enables CORS middleware,
• requests pass through several proxy layers before reaching the client.

As a result, the response contains duplicated CORS headers such as:

Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Vary: Origin
Vary: Origin

This behavior breaks some browsers and violates expected HTTP header semantics.

---

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create Service A (proxy) with Echo:

   func main() {
    e := echo.New()
   
    e.Use(middleware.Recover())
    e.Use(middleware.CORS())
   
    serviceAURL, err := url.Parse("http://localhost:8080")
    if err != nil {
    	e.Logger.Fatal(err)
    }
    serviceAProxy := httputil.NewSingleHostReverseProxy(serviceAURL)
   
    e.Any("/service-a/*", func(c echo.Context) error {
    	req := c.Request()
    	res := c.Response()
   
    	req.URL.Path = strings.TrimPrefix(req.URL.Path, "/service-a")
    	if req.URL.Path == "" {
    		req.URL.Path = "/"
    	}
   
    	serviceAProxy.ServeHTTP(res, req)
    	return nil
    })
   
    e.Logger.Fatal(e.Start(":8081"))
   }

2. Create Service B (proxy) with the same setup:

   func main() {
    e := echo.New()
   
    e.Use(middleware.Recover())
    e.Use(middleware.CORS())
   
    e.GET("/", func(c echo.Context) error {
    	return c.JSON(http.StatusOK, map[string]string{
    		"service": "service-a",
    		"version": "1.0.0",
    		"status":  "running",
    	})
    })
   
    e.GET("/health", func(c echo.Context) error {
    	return c.JSON(http.StatusOK, map[string]string{
    		"status": "healthy",
    	})
    })
   
    e.Logger.Fatal(e.Start(":8080"))
   }

3. Route traffic:

   Client → Service A → Service B
   

4. Send a request from the browser or postman.

---

Expected Behavior

CORS headers should not be duplicated in the final response.
Ideally:

• Echo should override existing CORS headers, or
• CORS middleware should check if headers are already present before adding them.

Example:

Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *

---

Actual Behavior

Each proxy layer appends its own CORS headers, resulting in duplicates.

---

Why this is a problem

This is a realistic production scenario:

• API Gateway
• Internal proxy services
• BFF layers

Disabling CORS in intermediate services is not always possible or desirable, especially when services are also used independently.

---

Environment

• Echo version: v4.14.0
• Go version: go1.24.0
• OS: macOS