How to use tower middleware with Axum

Use tower::ServiceBuilder to stack middleware layers and wrap your Axum router with tower::ServiceExt::into_make_service_with_connect_info or directly via axum::Router::layer.

use axum::{routing::get, Router};
use tower::{ServiceBuilder, ServiceExt};
use tower_http::trace::TraceLayer;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let app = Router::new()
        .route("/", get(|| async { "Hello" }))
        .layer(TraceLayer::new_for_http())
        .layer(ServiceBuilder::new().layer(tower_http::cors::CorsLayer::permissive()));

    let listener = tokio::net::TcpListener::bind("0.0.0.0:3000").await.unwrap();
    axum::serve(listener, app).await.unwrap();
}

Tower middleware adds reusable logic like logging or CORS to your Axum server without changing your route handlers. Think of it as wrapping your request pipeline in layers, where each layer can inspect or modify requests and responses. You use it whenever you need cross-cutting concerns like tracing, compression, or authentication.