>plus the expectation that the client will add this data to subsequent requests sent within a certain timeframe That's the definition of "client-side state". C

>plus the expectation that the client will add this data to subsequent requests sent within a certain timeframe That's the definition of "client-side state". Cookies have no purpose other than maintenance of client-side state. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6265 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6265 "This document defines the HTTP Cookie and Set-Cookie header fields. These header fields can be used by HTTP servers to store state (called cookies) at HTTP user agents, letting the servers maintain a stateful session over the mostly stateless HTTP protocol."