Request object attributes don't act like normal strings

Hi, I've been trying to use request.host or request.origin to put in a conditional if else, but it simply won't go inside. Nor does it work as a normal string if I try to so operations with it like split. So, as an example of what I'm trying to do, let request.host or request.origin = localhost:3000, so:

if request.host contains 'localhost'
  this seems not to be truthy since it won't go inside by any means
endif

or

request.host | split: ':' | first

this will result in "localhost:3000"

simply doesn't work like expected and I can't detect if I'm developing my store on localhost.

Start by reproducing the request.host and request.origin examples with localhost:3000, including the contains and split cases. Trace how these request attributes are exposed to Liquid templates; done means the reported string behavior is corrected or its supported behavior is made explicit.