HTTP Request Builder

Build, test, and save HTTP requests from the CLI with custom headers, auth, body, cookies, templates, interactive mode, and request history tracking.

What This Does

A CLI tool to build, test, and save HTTP requests. Send requests with custom headers, authentication, body, and cookies. Save requests as templates for reuse and maintain a history of your HTTP calls.

Key features:

• Send HTTP requests with GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, HEAD, OPTIONS methods
• Set custom headers with key-value pairs
• Add authentication (Basic Auth, Bearer tokens)
• Include request body (JSON, form data, raw text)
• Manage cookies for requests
• Save requests as templates (JSON files) for reuse
• Load and execute saved templates
• Interactive mode for building requests step-by-step
• Command-line mode for scripting and automation
• Request history tracks your recent HTTP calls

When To Use

• You need to test REST API endpoints quickly from the terminal
• You want to save and reuse complex API requests
• You prefer a CLI tool over GUI applications like Postman
• You need to automate API testing in scripts
• You want to share API request configurations with team members
• You're debugging API issues and need to replay requests

Usage

Basic commands:

# Send a GET request
python3 scripts/main.py get https://api.example.com/data

# Send a POST request with JSON body
python3 scripts/main.py post https://api.example.com/api \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --body '{"name": "test", "value": 123}'

# Send with Basic authentication
python3 scripts/main.py get https://api.example.com/secure \
  --auth basic --username admin --password secret

# Send with Bearer token
python3 scripts/main.py get https://api.example.com/secure \
  --auth bearer --token "eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9"

# Save request as template
python3 scripts/main.py post https://api.example.com/api \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --body '{"name": "test"}' \
  --save-template my-request

# Load and execute template
python3 scripts/main.py template my-request

# Interactive mode
python3 scripts/main.py interactive

# View request history
python3 scripts/main.py history

# Clear history
python3 scripts/main.py history --clear

Examples

Example 1: Simple GET request

python3 scripts/main.py get https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1

Output:

Response Status: 200 OK
Response Headers:
  content-type: application/json; charset=utf-8
  ...

Response Body:
{
  "userId": 1,
  "id": 1,
  "title": "sunt aut facere repellat provident occaecati excepturi optio reprehenderit",
  "body": "quia et suscipit\nsuscipit recusandae consequuntur expedita et cum\nreprehenderit molestiae ut ut quas totam\nnostrum rerum est autem sunt rem eveniet architecto"
}

Example 2: POST request with JSON body and headers

python3 scripts/main.py post https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "X-API-Key: my-secret-key" \
  --body '{
    "title": "foo",
    "body": "bar",
    "userId": 1
  }'

Example 3: Save and reuse request template

# Save template
python3 scripts/main.py post https://api.example.com/users \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer token123" \
  --body '{"name": "New User"}' \
  --save-template create-user

# Use template later
python3 scripts/main.py template create-user

# List all templates
python3 scripts/main.py templates

Example 4: Interactive mode

python3 scripts/main.py interactive

Interactive mode guides you through:

1. HTTP method selection
2. URL input
3. Headers configuration
4. Authentication setup
5. Request body input
6. Send request and view results

Requirements

• Python 3.x
• requests library (installed automatically or via pip)

Install missing dependencies:

pip3 install requests

Limitations

• This is a CLI tool, not a GUI application
• History and templates stored in simple JSON files in ~/.http-request-builder/
• Limited authentication support (Basic, Bearer tokens only)
• No OAuth, API key in header, or complex authentication flows
• No cookie persistence across sessions (cookies only for single request)
• No proxy configuration support
• No SSL certificate verification controls
• No support for websockets or streaming responses
• No advanced features like response validation or testing assertions
• Request history limited to 100 entries by default
• Templates are simple JSON files without encryption
• No built-in support for environment variables in templates
• Performance limited by Python requests library
• Large response bodies may be truncated for display
• No support for multipart form data file uploads
• No built-in rate limiting or retry logic
• No support for HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 protocols

Directory Structure

The tool stores data in ~/.http-request-builder/:

• templates/ - Saved request templates (JSON files)
• history.json - Request history log
• config.json - Configuration (if any)

Error Handling

• Invalid URLs return helpful error messages
• Network timeouts after 30 seconds
• JSON parsing errors show the problematic content
• Missing templates indicate which template wasn't found
• Authentication failures suggest correct format

Contributing

This is a skill built by the Skill Factory. Issues and improvements should be reported through the OpenClaw project.