PostWoman

A CLI api tester and request builder, totally not born out of frustration from some other tool...

Why

I'd much rather edit my test routes in my text editor as bare config files and fire them via a CLI than fumble around some GUI application.

As an example, most API test tools have features to automatically split down query arguments from a built url. PostWoman doesn't bother, as your editor will most likely offer multi-cursors and search/replace to easily split off query parameters.

While PostWoman will never be as fully featured as other graphical tools, it doesn't need to be to provide a solid API testing framework.

Usage

Install with cargo install postwoman

postwoman expects a postwoman.toml collection in your cwd. A different file or path can be specified with the global -c option.

Use postwoman run <filter> to send requests to all routes in current config matching given filter (regex). Use . as filter to run all.

Examples

A collection can be super simple

[route.test]
url = "https://api.alemi.dev/debug"

But more complex options are available

[client] # HTTP client configuration
user_agent = "postwoman@sample/0.2.0"

[env] # these will be replaced in routes options. environment vars overrule these
PW_TOKEN = "set-me-as-and-environment-variable!"



[route.healthcheck] # the simplest possible route: just name and url
url = "https://api.alemi.dev/"

[route.debug]
url = "https://api.alemi.dev/debug"
method = "PUT" # specify request method
query = [ # specify query parameters in a more friendly way
	"body=json",
	"cache=0"
]
headers = [ # add custom headers to request
	"Content-Type: application/json",
	"Authorization: Bearer ${PW_TOKEN}",
]
body = { hello = "world!", success = true } # body can be a bare string, or an inline table (will be converted to json)
extract = ".path" # extract from json responses with JQ syntax
# note that a bare extractor string is equivalent to `{ type = "jq", query = ".path" }`

[route.benchmark]
url = "https://api.alemi.dev/look/into/the/void"
extract = { type = "discard" } # if you don't care about the output, discard it!

[route.notfound]
url = "https://api.alemi.dev/not-found"
expect = 404 # it's possible to specify expected status code, will fail if doesn't match
extract = { type = "regex", pattern = 'nginx/[0-9\.]+' } # extract from response with regex

[route.payload]
url = "https://api.alemi.dev/debug"
method = "POST"
body = '''{
	"complex": {
		"json": "payloads",
		"can": "be",
		"expressed": "this",
		"way": true
	}
}'''
extract = { type = "body" } # get the whole response body, this is the default extractor

[route.cookie]
url = "https://api.alemi.dev/getcookie"
method = "GET"
extract = { type = "header", key = "Set-Cookie" } # get a specific response header, ignoring body

Running

Show collection summary

$ postwoman
> postwoman@sample/0.2.0
+ PW_TOKEN: set-me-as-and-environment-variable!

- healthcheck: 	GET 	https://api.alemi.dev/
- debug: 	PUT 	https://api.alemi.dev/debug
- benchmark: 	GET 	https://api.alemi.dev/look/into/the/void
- notfound: 	GET 	https://api.alemi.dev/not-found
- payload: 	POST 	https://api.alemi.dev/debug
- cookie: 	GET 	https://api.alemi.dev/getcookie

Run all endpoints matching . (aka all of them)

$ postwoman run .
 : [22:27:17.960461] sending healthcheck ...
 + [22:27:18.109843] healthcheck done in 149ms
{
  "example": [
    "https://api.alemi.dev/debug",
    "https://api.alemi.dev/msg",
    "https://api.alemi.dev/mumble/ping"
  ],
  "time": "Saturday, 19-Oct-2024 20:27:18 GMT",
  "up": true
}
 : [22:27:18.109924] sending debug ...
 + [22:27:18.268383] debug done in 158ms
/debug?body=json&cache=0
 : [22:27:18.268477] sending benchmark ...
 + [22:27:18.422707] benchmark done in 154ms
 : [22:27:18.422775] sending notfound ...
 + [22:27:18.575942] notfound done in 153ms
nginx/1.26.2
 : [22:27:18.576010] sending payload ...
 + [22:27:18.732582] payload done in 156ms
{
  "body": "{\n\t\"complex\": {\n\t\t\"json\": \"payloads\",\n\t\t\"can\": \"be\",\n\t\t\"expressed\": \"this\",\n\t\t\"way\": true\n\t}\n}",
  "headers": {
    "accept": [
      "*/*"
    ],
    "connection": "close",
    "content-length": "94",
    "user-agent": "postwoman@sample/0.2.0",
    "x-forwarded-proto": "https",
    "x-real-ip": "93.34.149.115",
    "x-real-port": 46695,
    "x-user-agent": "postwoman@sample/0.2.0"
  },
  "method": "POST",
  "path": "/debug",
  "time": 1729369638.7079802,
  "version": "HTTP/1.0"
}
 : [22:27:18.732676] sending cookie ...
 + [22:27:18.886862] cookie done in 154ms
SGF2ZSBhIENvb2tpZSE=

Debug a specific route passing --debug:

$ postwoman run notfound --debug
 : [22:26:59.045642] sending notfound ...
 + [22:26:59.220103] notfound done in 174ms
Response {
    url: "https://api.alemi.dev/not-found",
    status: 404,
    headers: {
        "server": "nginx/1.26.2",
        "date": "Sat, 19 Oct 2024 20:26:59 GMT",
        "content-type": "text/html",
        "content-length": "153",
        "connection": "keep-alive",
        "vary": "Accept-Encoding",
    },
}
Body: <html>
<head><title>404 Not Found</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>404 Not Found</h1></center>
<hr><center>nginx/1.26.2</center>
</body>
</html>