opvrager

Opvrager is a term used primarily in Dutch-language technical literature to denote an agent or component that initiates data requests to external resources. The word derives from the Dutch verb opvragen, meaning to query or retrieve. In English-language contexts the term is uncommon; equivalent concepts are typically described as data fetcher, requester, or query initiator.

In software architecture, an opvrager typically acts as a client-side coordinator within a data-access layer. Its responsibilities include constructing request payloads, selecting data providers, applying authentication and authorization, handling retries and backoff strategies, converting provider errors into actionable results, and optionally caching or deduplicating identical requests. Depending on design, an opvrager may be stateless—using correlation identifiers to relate traces—or carry light state to support rate limiting and multi-step fetch flows. A pluggable provider interface enables swapping data sources without altering higher-level logic.

Design variants often treat the opvrager as a façade or proxy that abstracts provider details from the rest of the system. In distributed architectures, an opvrager may operate within a service boundary alongside API gateways, service meshes, or orchestration components, coordinating across multiple external sources.

See also: data fetcher, requester, query engine, opvragen (Dutch).