The tldr is there are times you want the actual url that the client requested, but many tools helpfully unescape the urls, and it seems like by spec (api? Actua

The tldr is there are times you want the actual url that the client requested, but many tools helpfully unescape the urls, and it seems like by spec (api? Actual http?) Apache cannot provide the encoded url, so presumably it isn’t unique there due to people trying to be compatible. The solution was just a different escaping scheme that other apps in the stack don’t recognize and so can’t be “helpful” with, which honestly seems like a reasonable solution given the constraints