The ASP.NET pipeline allows HTTP modules to plug in into the request processing lifecycle and do work at various stages. For example, output caching, authentication, authorization etc. are all implemented as HTTP modules. However one of the problems is that HTTP modules must be registered in configuration. This is a little painful for writing framework components where an HTTP module is essentially an implementation detail. You don't want every app developer using your framework to have to add in some configuration entries. What you want is the ability to programmatically add HTTP modules to the pipeline. This isn't available out-of-the-box today. I faced this problem in my previous post around RIA Services, Authentication and Roles…(read more)