http: use intrusive lists in ConnectionsList

[mcollina]

Every HTTP message was performing multiple erase and insert operations on the two std::set instances in ConnectionsList, which are ordered by a key (last_message_start_) that mutates on every message. In a hello-world server profile this showed up as ~2.2% of total CPU cycles spent in red-black tree rebalancing plus tree-node allocations, all on the per-request hot path.

This PR replaces both sets with intrusive doubly-linked lists:

• A node is linked to itself when it is not in a list, so Remove() is idempotent and the destructor unlinks automatically, which also removes the old "Pop from the lists BEFORE resetting last_message_start_" footgun.
• Membership in the "all connections" list no longer changes per message, so the Pop+Push pair in on_message_begin/on_message_complete is gone entirely.
• Updating the active list is now a single O(1) unlink + tail append with no allocations.
• Appending to the tail keeps the active list ordered by last_message_start_ because uv_hrtime() is monotonic, so expired() semantics are unchanged. The arrays returned by all()/idle()/active() are now in insertion order instead of comparator order; none of their consumers depend on ordering.

Benchmark results (Linux, i7-7700, server and benchmarker pinned to separate cores):

                                                                                           confidence improvement accuracy (*)   (**)  (***)
http/simple.js duration=5 chunkedEnc=0 c=50 chunks=1 len=4 type='bytes' benchmarker='wrk'          **      4.06 %       ±2.41% ±3.23% ±4.25%
http/simple.js duration=5 chunkedEnc=0 c=500 chunks=1 len=4 type='bytes' benchmarker='wrk'                 2.35 %       ±2.45% ±3.29% ±4.34%

A separate interleaved wrk A/B (hello-world server, -t2 -c50, 5 alternating pairs) shows +4.9% (26,599 → 27,914 req/s), with the patched binary winning every pair. A perf profile of the patched binary confirms the _Rb_tree symbols are gone and malloc traffic in the parser path is roughly halved.

This PR was prepared with the help of AI assistance.

[nodejs-github-bot]

Review requested:

• @nodejs/http
• @nodejs/net

[codecov]

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 86.27451% with 7 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 90.12%. Comparing base (347e266) to head (0cc64e0).
⚠️ Report is 156 commits behind head on main.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
src/node_http_parser.cc	86.27%	7 Missing ⚠️

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main   #65296      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   90.30%   90.12%   -0.19%     
==========================================
  Files         759      752       -7     
  Lines      248294   251826    +3532     
  Branches    46860    47356     +496     
==========================================
+ Hits       224220   226954    +2734     
- Misses      15516    16225     +709     
- Partials     8558     8647      +89     

Files with missing lines	Coverage Δ
src/node_http_parser.cc	84.72% <86.27%> (-0.26%)	⬇️

... and 174 files with indirect coverage changes

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[ronag]

Have you benchmarked against an unordered_set or just a plain vector?

I suspect those would be more cache friendly and avoid pointer chasing.

[nodejs-github-bot]

CI: https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-pull-request/75879/

[nodejs-github-bot]

CI: https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-pull-request/75886/

[nodejs-github-bot]

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----------------------------------- PR info ------------------------------------
Title      http: use intrusive lists in ConnectionsList (#65296)
Author     Matteo Collina <matteo.collina@gmail.com> (@mcollina)
Branch     mcollina:http-connectionslist-intrusive -> nodejs:main
Labels     c++, http_parser, author ready, needs-ci, commit-queue
Commits    1
 - http: use intrusive lists in ConnectionsList
Committers 1
 - Matteo Collina <hello@matteocollina.com>
PR-URL: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/65296
Reviewed-By: Robert Nagy <ronagy@icloud.com>
Reviewed-By: Paolo Insogna <paolo@cowtech.it>
------------------------------ Generated metadata ------------------------------
PR-URL: https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/65296
Reviewed-By: Robert Nagy <ronagy@icloud.com>
Reviewed-By: Paolo Insogna <paolo@cowtech.it>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ℹ  This PR was created on Sat, 15 Aug 2026 04:05:15 GMT
   ✔  Approvals: 2
   ✔  - Robert Nagy (@ronag) (TSC): https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/65296#pullrequestreview-4943029706
   ✔  - Paolo Insogna (@ShogunPanda) (TSC): https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/65296#pullrequestreview-4949195971
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CI: https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-pull-request/75919/