orhun / atac

A simple API client (postman like) in your terminal

ATAC ⚔📩

Table Of Contents

• Description
• How to use
  • Install with cargo
  • Install with Homebrew
  • Binary
  • Compile by yourself
• Features
  • Current
  • TODO v1.0.0
  • TODO v2.0.0
• Documentation
• Technical precisions
  • Tested on
  • Dependencies
  • Binary size
• Contributors
• License

Description

ATAC is Arguably a Terminal API Client. It is based on well known clients such as Postman, Insomnia, or even Bruno, but inside your terminal without any specific graphical environment needed.

The philosophy of ATAC is to be free, account-less, and offline for now and forever.

How to use

Install with cargo

Important

First, make sure your rust version is at least 1.76

Simply use:

cargo install atac

Then:

atac -h

Enjoy!

Install with Homebrew

Simply use:

brew tap julien-cpsn/atac
brew install atac

Then:

atac -h

Enjoy!

Binary

The binaries from the latest release can be found here

Important

Don't forget to run it from a terminal. For example, you can add the binary into your PATH. You won't be able to run it like other graphical applications since it needs CLI arguments.

For more:

atac -h

Compile by yourself

Important

First, make sure your rust version is at least 1.76

Simply clone the repository and use:

cargo run -- -h

Build latest release

cargo build --release

Features

Current

Features	ATAC	Postman	Insomnia
Manage collections & requests	✅	✅	✅
HTTP Client	✅	✅	✅
Methods	✅	✅	✅
- GET	✅	✅	✅
- POST	✅	✅	✅
- PUT	✅	✅	✅
- PATCH	✅	✅	✅
- DELETE	✅	✅	✅
- HEAD	✅	✅	✅
- OPTIONS	✅	✅	✅
Authentication	Partial	✅	✅
- Basic auth	✅	✅	✅
- Bearer token	✅	✅	✅
- JWT, Digest, OAuth1-2, AWS	❌ 🔜	✅	✅
Headers	✅	✅	✅
Body	✅	✅	✅
- Multipart form	✅	✅	✅
- URL Encoded from	✅	✅	✅
- File	✅	✅	✅
- Plain text	✅	✅	✅
- JSON, XML, HTML	✅	✅	✅
Full response	✅	✅	✅
- Status code	✅	✅	✅
- Cookies	✅	✅	✅
- Headers	✅	✅	✅
- Duration	✅	✅	✅
Scripting	❌ 🔜	Partial	❌
- Pre-request script	❌ 🔜	❌	❌
- Post-request script	❌ 🔜	✅	❌
Asynchronous requests	✅	✅	✅
Per-request settings	✅	✅	✅
- Use proxy	✅	✅	✅
- Allow redirects	✅	✅	✅
- Store cookies	✅	✅	✅
WebSocket Client	❌ 🔜	✅	✅
GraphQL	❌ (not planned)	✅	✅
Free	✅	Depends	Depends
Lightweight, fast and efficient	✅	❌	❌
Data storage	Your own committable, readable and versioned files	Tied to your account	Tied to your account
Offline	✅	❌	❌
Real-time collaboration	❌ (not planned)	✅	✅
Environment files and variables	✅ (committable, readable and versioned)	✅	✅
View options	✅	✅	✅
Global configuration file	✅	✅	✅
- HTTP/HTTPS Proxy	✅	✅	✅
- Disable CORS	✅	❌	❌
- Toggle syntax highlighting	✅	❌	❌
Postman v2.1.0 import	✅	✅	✅
OpenAPI import	❌ 🔜	✅	✅

TODO v1.0.0

• To add

  • Create a repo wiki
  • Document whole code

• To improve

  • Pretty print output
  • Sign binary
  • Add file to Postman import

• To fix

  • Query parameters bug

TODO v2.0.0

• To add

  • Command line usage (send requests, add new requests)
  • keymap configuration (via a config file)
  • Request body syntax highlighting
  • Export a request to other code formats (curl, PHP, JS, Rust, ...)
  • Pre and post-request script (javascript v8 engine)

• To improve

  • Editing cookies
  • Insomnia import
  • Auto-completion on env file variables
  • Manage multipart Content-type header (auto-generated for now)

Ideas (will think about it later)

• Base URL on collection

Documentation

Note

A documentation will soon be published in the wiki section

Technical precisions

Tested on

• Console Host
  • Windows 11 (Pro)
  • WSL2 Debian
  • Windows 10 (Pro)
  • Windows 8.1 (N)
• Ubuntu Desktop Terminal
  • Ubuntu 17.10
  • Pop!_OS 20.04
• (Arch, Manjaro) KDE Konsole
• (Arch, NixOS) Kitty
• Linux Mint
• (OpenSuse) Alacritty
• (Chrome OS) Crostini

(List from here)

Dependencies

Library	Version	Reason
reqwest & reqwest cookie store	0.11.27 & 0.6.0	Send requests
ratatui	0.26.1	Terminal UI framework
crossterm	0.27.0	Terminal Backend
tui-big-text	0.4.2	Display big texts. Only used for displaying ATAC in the homepage.
tui-tree-widget	0.19.0	Display tree-like lists. Used for displaying the collections.
tui-textarea	0.5.0	Text area that handle a lot of features. Used for editing request body.
throbber-widgets-tui	0.4.1	Display loading UI elements. Used when request is pending.
syntect	5.2.0	Syntax highlighting
serde & serde_json	1.0.197 & 1.0.144	Serialize & Deserialize application data into JSON files
toml	0.8.11	Serialize & Deserialize application config files
envfile	0.2.1	Deserialize application environment files
My fork of postman_collection	0.2.1	Deserialize Postman collection files
clap	4.5.0	Command Line Argument Parser
tokio	1.0.0	Handle asynchronous requests
strum	0.26.2	Enum facilities
lazy_static	1.4.0	Allows for more flexible constants. Mainly used for accessing CLI arguments everywhere
regex	1.10.3	Regex. Using for parsing requests URL

Binary size

The binary file size goes from ~4.5 MB to ~7 MB depending on the platform. I try to keep it as small as possible.

Contributors

• @julien-cpsn

License

The MIT license for this project can be seen here