diff --git a/dist/platform/elc b/dist/platform/elc
index 722711c..14cd6ee 100755
Binary files a/dist/platform/elc and b/dist/platform/elc differ
diff --git a/dist/platform/elc.prev3 b/dist/platform/elc.prev3
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..722711c
Binary files /dev/null and b/dist/platform/elc.prev3 differ
diff --git a/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c b/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c
index e5b0365..ab788dc 100644
--- a/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c
+++ b/el-compiler/runtime/el_runtime.c
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 #include <sys/stat.h>
 #include <netinet/in.h>
 #include <arpa/inet.h>
+#include <dlfcn.h>      /* dlsym for http_set_handler fallback */
 #include <unistd.h>
 #include <dirent.h>
 #include <errno.h>
@@ -616,6 +617,24 @@ void http_set_handler(el_val_t name) {
     pthread_mutex_lock(&_http_handler_mu);
     free(_http_active_handler);
     _http_active_handler = el_strdup(n ? n : "");
+    /* If the name is not yet in the registry, try dlsym lookup against
+     * the running binary's symbol table. Every El `fn name(...)` compiles
+     * to a global C symbol with that exact name, so El programs can self-
+     * register their own handlers just by calling http_set_handler("name"). */
+    if (n && *n) {
+        int found = 0;
+        for (size_t i = 0; i < _http_handler_count; i++) {
+            if (strcmp(_http_handlers[i].name, n) == 0) { found = 1; break; }
+        }
+        if (!found) {
+            void* sym = dlsym(RTLD_DEFAULT, n);
+            if (sym && _http_handler_count < sizeof(_http_handlers) / sizeof(_http_handlers[0])) {
+                _http_handlers[_http_handler_count].name = el_strdup(n);
+                _http_handlers[_http_handler_count].fn   = (http_handler_fn)sym;
+                _http_handler_count++;
+            }
+        }
+    }
     pthread_mutex_unlock(&_http_handler_mu);
 }