PR #927 added optional brotli request-body compression. The brotli quality is currently hardcoded to 6 in src/apify_client/http_clients/_base.py:

_brotli_compress = functools.partial(brotli.compress, quality=6)

Quality 6 is a reasonable default (better ratio than gzip, much lower CPU than brotli's max quality 11), and it's documented as such in docs/02_concepts/13_compression.mdx. But it's not tunable: users who want maximum compression (quality 11) for bandwidth-bound workloads, or a lower quality to save CPU, currently have no way to change it.

Proposal

Expose the compression quality as a client-level configuration option instead of relying only on the hardcoded value. Points to decide during design:

• A client parameter (e.g. on ApifyClient / the HTTP client) to override the brotli quality, defaulting to the current 6.
• Whether to also make the gzip compression level configurable for symmetry.
• Whether to let users force a specific algorithm rather than relying purely on import-based auto-detection (br when brotli is importable, gzip otherwise) — the current behavior flips to brotli whenever the brotli package is present in the environment, even if it was pulled in transitively.

Context

• PR that introduced compression: feat: Add request body compression with optional brotli #927
• Discussion on the PR: feat: Add request body compression with optional brotli #927
• Related issue (min-size threshold, separate concern): Skip request-body compression for small payloads #934