api-rester 0.3.1

A simple REST API client CLI utility

Api Rester

A lightweight command-line REST client for testing APIs without the overhead of GUI applications like Postman or Insomnia.

Installation

Api Rester can be installed through pip package manager with the following command

pip install api-rester

Features

• API Calls execution with request and response stored on JSON files
• Support for all major HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, PATCH)
• Query parameters support
• Environment variables replacement on request and response files
• Alternative request and response files
• Verbose logging mode for debugging
• Get environment variables from .env file automatically
• Persistent cookies support

Future work

• Timeouts
• Stdin, Stdout support for piping: python seeder-script.py | api-rester call | bash analytics-script.py

Basic Usage

1. Create a request file, by default the application recognizes the file as request.json

{
    "protocol": "https", // required (http or https)
    "host": "api.example.com", // required
    "path": "/api/v1/users", // required
    "method": "POST", // required (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, PATCH)
    "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    "body": {
        "name": "John Doe",
        "email": "[e-mail]"
    }
}

2. Execute the request

api-rester call

3. The application will execute the request and save the response in the response.json file

{
    "status": 200,
    "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    "body": {
        "id": 59,
        "name": "John Doe",
        "email": "[e-mail]" 
    }
}

Custom Files

The application supports alternative files to be used as a request and response.

For example, if you have a file called example-file.json and want to receive the response in a different file called example-response.json, you can use it as a request by running the following command:

api-rester call --request-file example-file.json --response-file example-response.json

The application will execute the request and save the response in the example-response.json file.

Environment Variables

The application supports environment variables to be replaced in the request.json file.

For example, if you have an environment variable called API_KEY, you can replace it in the request.json file with ${{API_KEY}}.

{
    // ...
    "path": "/api/v1/users/${{API_KEY}}"
    // ...
}

When you execute the request, the application will replace the ${{API_KEY}} with the value of the API_KEY environment variable.

API_KEY="1234567890" api-rester call

The application will replace the ${{API_KEY}} with the value of the API_KEY environment variable and execute the request.

{
    // ...
    "path": "/api/v1/users/1234567890"
    // ...
}

Example

1. Create a request file called example-file.json

{
    "protocol": "https",
    "host": "api.example.com",
    "path": "/api/v1/users",
    "method": "POST",
    "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json",
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${{API_KEY}}"
    },
    "body": {
        "name": "John Doe",
        "email": "[e-mail]"
    }
}

2. Execute the request

API_KEY=1234567890 api-rester call --request-file example-file.json --response-file example-response.json

3. The application will execute the request and save the response in the example-response.json file

{
    "status": 200,
    "headers": {
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    },
    "body": {
        "id": 59,
        "name": "John Doe",
        "email": "[e-mail]"
    }
}

Template generation

Api rester can also generate a template of what it expects as a request with this command:

api-rester template

Which you can specify the path with --filename or --f

api-rester template --filename custom_place.json

It will generate this file:

{
  "protocol": "http",
  "host": "localhost:3000",
  "path": "/",
  "method": "GET",
  "headers": {
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  "body": {
    "message": "Hello world"
  }
}

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.