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Traffic Inspector

diegosouzapw edited this page Jun 15, 2026 · 1 revision

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Traffic Inspector

Traffic Inspector is OmniRoute's built-in HTTPS traffic debugger — a Charles Proxy / mitmweb / HTTP Toolkit-like tool that is LLM-aware and agent-aware. It lives at /dashboard/tools/traffic-inspector and receives live traffic from up to 4 simultaneous capture sources.

Dashboard location: /dashboard/tools/traffic-inspector Sidebar group: Tools (after AgentBridge) See also: AGENTBRIDGE.md — AgentBridge is capture mode 1.


§1 Overview

What makes Traffic Inspector unique

Feature mitmweb Charles Fiddler OmniRoute Traffic Inspector
Web-based
Open-source partial
Agent-aware (knows if request is from Antigravity/Copilot/etc.)
LLM-aware (parses OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini shape, tokens, model)
Model mapping visible (gemini-3-flash → claude-sonnet-4.7)
Proxy/upstream latency split partial
Integrated with OmniRoute routing, fallback, cost
System-wide proxy debug (any app on the machine)
Custom host capture (per-host DNS redirect)
HTTP_PROXY env mode
Conversation view (multi-turn bubbles, tool_use/tool_result)
SSE stream merger (reconstruct from delta events)
Session recording (named, exportable .har/.jsonl)

Architecture in one paragraph

The TrafficBuffer (src/mitm/inspector/buffer.ts) is a shared in-memory ring buffer (default 1000 entries, configurable via INSPECTOR_BUFFER_SIZE). All capture sources write to it via push(). The buffer classifies each entry using kindDetector.ts (determines if it's an LLM request), computes a contextKey (SHA-256 fingerprint of the system prompt), and broadcasts to all WebSocket subscribers via globalTrafficBuffer.subscribe(). The dashboard connects via GET /api/tools/traffic-inspector/ws and receives a snapshot on connect, followed by new/update/clear events.


§2 Capture modes

Traffic Inspector supports 4 simultaneous capture sources. Each is independently toggleable.

Mode 1 — AgentBridge (default, always on)

Source: AgentBridge handlers (src/mitm/handlers/base.ts) Mechanism: Every intercept() call in MitmHandlerBase calls hookBufferStart() before forwarding and hookBufferUpdate() on completion. Zero extra config — works as soon as AgentBridge is running. Reach: The 9 IDE agents configured in AgentBridge Note: source field in InterceptedRequest = "agent-bridge"

Mode 2 — Custom Hosts (DNS redirect)

Source: User-defined host list (inspector_custom_hosts table) Mechanism: Adding a host via the UI adds 127.0.0.1 <host> to /etc/hosts (requires sudo). The existing AgentBridge MITM server (port 443) generates a SNI cert dynamically for the new host. Reach: Any application using the added host — no app config change needed Note: source = "custom-host"

Example use cases:

  • Monitor api.openai.com from Python scripts
  • Debug my-internal-llm.company.com
  • Capture traffic from mobile devices on the same network (via ARP spoofing — advanced)

Mode 3 — HTTP_PROXY listener (port 8080)

Source: Applications using HTTP_PROXY/HTTPS_PROXY environment variables Mechanism: Secondary listener at port 8080 (src/mitm/inspector/httpProxyServer.ts) that acts as a standard explicit HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Accepts CONNECT tunnels (HTTPS) and direct HTTP requests. Reach: Any application that respects HTTP_PROXY env — no DNS change, no sudo Note: source = "http-proxy"

# Quick capture for a single command:
HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:8080 curl https://api.openai.com/v1/models

# Persistent capture in a shell session:
export HTTP_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:8080
export HTTPS_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:8080

TLS limitation: HTTPS CONNECT tunnels are captured as metadata only (host, port, timing) — TLS body is not decrypted by default. Enable "Decrypt HTTPS in proxy mode" toggle (opt-in, requires AgentBridge cert to be trusted) for full body inspection.

Port conflict: If port 8080 is in use, AgentBridge returns a 409 with a structured error. Change the port via INSPECTOR_HTTP_PROXY_PORT env var.

Mode 4 — System-wide proxy (advanced, opt-in)

Source: OS-level proxy settings (applies to all apps on the machine) Mechanism: Uses OS APIs to redirect all HTTP/HTTPS traffic through the HTTP_PROXY listener:

  • macOS: networksetup -setwebproxy / -setsecurewebproxy
  • Linux: gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy + /etc/environment
  • Windows: netsh winhttp set proxy 127.0.0.1:8080 Reach: Every application on the machine that respects system proxy settings Note: source = "system-proxy"

Safety mechanisms:

  • Auto-disable timer (default 30 min, configurable via INSPECTOR_SYSTEM_PROXY_GUARD_MINUTES)
  • Previous system proxy state is saved in DB and restored on revert
  • Dashboard shows "Reverting system proxy" prompt if user navigates away while active
  • UI shows ⚠ Advanced badge + explicit confirmation checkbox

Capture mode comparison

Mode Setup Sudo? Reach Notes
1. AgentBridge Automatic Once (cert+hosts) 9 IDE agents Default on
2. Custom Hosts Per-host input Yes (hosts file) Any app using that host Persisted in DB
3. HTTP_PROXY export HTTPS_PROXY=... No Apps respecting env Port 8080, no TLS decrypt by default
4. System-wide Toggle + confirm Yes All apps on machine Auto-disable in 30 min

§3 UI

3.1 Layout

┌─ Traffic Inspector ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ┌─ Capture sources toolbar ─────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│ │ [✓ AgentBridge]  [✓ Custom hosts (3)]  [○ HTTP_PROXY]  [○ System]│   │
│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
│ ┌─ Filter/control bar ──────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│ │ Profile: (●) LLM only  (○) Custom  (○) All                        │   │
│ │ [⎉ Pause] [🗑 Clear] [⬇ .har] [● REC session]    ● live 482/1k  │   │
│ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
├══◀▶══════════════════════════════╬══════════════════════════════════════╤╡
│ REQUEST LIST (resizable)         ║ DETAIL PANE                         ▲ │
│ ────────────────────────────── │ ║ [Conversation][Headers][Request]    │ │
│ ▎ 14:32 POST 200 12k AG openai ║ [Response][Timing][LLM][Stats]      │ │
│ ▎ 14:31 POST 200 8k  CP openai ║                                     ▼ │
│ ▎ 14:31 POST 503 ⚠   KR ...   ║                                       │
│ ▎ 14:30 GET  200 3k  🌐 custom ║                                       │
└══════════════════════════════════╝══════════════════════════════════════╝

3.2 Request list (left panel)

  • Virtualized (useVirtualList + ResizeObserver): handles 1000 items without freezing
  • Auto-scroll with toggle to pause while inspecting
  • Color-coded status: green (2xx), yellow (3xx), red (4xx/5xx), gray (in-flight)
  • Agent emoji: 🔵 Antigravity, 🟢 Copilot, 🟠 Kiro, 🟣 Codex, 🔷 Cursor, 🟤 Zed, 🟡 Claude Code, ⚫ Open Code, 🌐 custom host
  • Context color bar: 1px left border colored by contextKey (SHA-256 of system prompt) — visually groups related conversations
  • Lazy body: only the selected request's body is materialized in the detail tabs (avoids rendering 1000 × 1MB bodies)

3.3 Detail pane — 7 tabs

Tab Content Notes
Conversation Multi-turn chat bubbles (system/user/assistant + tool_use/tool_result) Normalized from any provider format; only shown for detectedKind === "llm"
Headers Request + response header tables Sensitive headers (Authorization, Cookie, api-key) masked by default; "Show secrets" toggle
Request Raw body, JSON tree view, model field badge Pretty-printed JSON or raw text
Response Raw body or SSE event list; toggle "Raw ↔ Merged" SSE merger reconstructs final message from delta events
Timing Waterfall: proxy overhead vs upstream latency Total, TTFB, and size
LLM Details Provider, model, messages count, tokens in/out, cost estimate, mapped target Only shown for LLM requests
Stats Recharts: latency timeline, token bar chart, tool call scatter Only shown when a recorded session is loaded

3.4 Toolbar controls

Control Action
⎉ Pause Stops rendering new requests; "X new" badge accumulates
🗑 Clear Clears the UI list (server buffer is not affected)
⬇ Export .har Downloads current filtered list as HAR file
● Record session Starts a named recording session
Profile selector LLM only / Custom hosts / All
Host filter Substring match on host field
Agent filter Dropdown: All / per-agent
Status filter All / 2xx / 3xx / 4xx / 5xx / error
Source filter All / agent-bridge / custom-host / http-proxy / system-proxy

3.5 Resizable panels

  • List and detail pane separated by a drag handle
  • List width: min 280px, max 720px, persisted in localStorage (inspector.listWidth)
  • Collapsible to a 48px rail (icon-only); click a row in the rail to expand

§4 LLM-aware features

4.1 Kind detector (src/mitm/inspector/kindDetector.ts)

Classifies each request as "llm", "app", or "unknown" using 4 signals:

  1. Host registry — ~18 known LLM API hostnames (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, Mistral, Together, Fireworks, Cohere, Perplexity, Hugging Face, OpenRouter, xAI, Moonshot, etc.)
  2. Path patterns/v1/chat/completions, /v1/messages, /generateContent, /v1/responses, etc.
  3. Body shape — detects messages[] (OpenAI/Claude), contents[] (Gemini), prompt, input fields
  4. User-agent hintscodex, claude, gemini, antigravity, kiro, copilot, cursor in UA string

Custom hosts added via Mode 2 inherit their kind from the form input (defaults to "custom").

4.2 SSE merger (src/mitm/inspector/sseMerger.ts)

MIT port from chouzz/llm-interceptor

Reconstructs the final assistant message from raw SSE delta events:

  • Anthropic: accumulates content_block_delta by index; handles text_delta, input_json_delta (tool calls), thinking_delta
  • OpenAI: accumulates choices[i].delta.content and tool_calls by index
  • Gemini: accumulates candidates[i].content.parts
  • Unknown: returns raw events as-is

The Response tab shows a toggle: "Raw events ↔ Merged".

4.3 Conversation normalizer (src/mitm/inspector/conversationNormalizer.ts)

MIT port from chouzz/llm-interceptor

Converts OpenAI, Anthropic, and Gemini message formats to a single NormalizedConversation before rendering:

interface NormalizedConversation {
  request: NormalizedTurn[];    // messages / contents / prompt from request body
  response: NormalizedTurn[];   // assistant response (merged via sseMerger)
  contextKey: string | null;    // SHA-256 system-prompt fingerprint
}

Block types: text, tool_use, tool_result. The Conversation tab uses this shape regardless of provider.

4.4 Context key colorization (src/mitm/inspector/contextKey.ts)

  • Computes SHA-256 of the system prompt (first role:system message, or system field, or Gemini systemInstruction)
  • Returns a 12-character hex prefix ("a3f9c2...")
  • Frontend maps the key to a deterministic HSL color for the left-border bar
  • Filtro "same context": clicking the ctx #a3f chip adds a filter to show only requests with the same fingerprint

This makes it easy to visually distinguish different "personas" or tasks running in the same agent session.

4.5 LLM metadata extraction

For LLM requests, the LLM Details tab extracts:

interface LlmMetadata {
  provider: string | null;        // "openai" | "anthropic" | "gemini" | ...
  apiKind: string | null;         // "chat.completions" | "messages" | "embeddings" | ...
  model: string | null;           // from request body or response
  messages: number;               // turn count
  tokensIn: number | null;        // usage.prompt_tokens / usage.input_tokens
  tokensOut: number | null;       // usage.completion_tokens / usage.output_tokens
  streamed: boolean;              // true if SSE response
  mappedTo: string | null;        // x-omniroute-mapped header
  costEstimateUsd: number | null; // estimated cost based on OmniRoute pricing
}

§5 Sessions

5.1 Recording a session

  1. Click "● Record session" in the toolbar → enter a name (optional)
  2. Live tail continues normally; a red pulsing indicator shows ◉ REC · <name> · 00:42 · 23 reqs
  3. Click "⏹ Stop" → the session snapshot is saved to inspector_sessions + inspector_session_requests

5.2 Viewing a recorded session

The Sessions dropdown in the toolbar lists saved sessions. Selecting one:

  • Loads the session's snapshot (frozen state)
  • A banner shows: Viewing recorded session "<name>" — [Back to live]
  • The Stats tab becomes available with Recharts aggregates

5.3 Export formats

Each session can be exported as:

Format Use
HAR (HTTP Archive 1.2) Compatible with Chrome DevTools, Charles, Fiddler — import for offline analysis
JSONL One InterceptedRequest per line — compatible with llm-interceptor format

Export via GET /api/tools/traffic-inspector/sessions/{id}/export.har or the ⬇ button in the Sessions dropdown.


§6 Security

Traffic Inspector shows all intercepted HTTPS traffic, including authorization headers and request bodies. The following controls are in place:

Control Details
LOCAL_ONLY All routes and the WebSocket endpoint are loopback-only (enforced in routeGuard.ts before auth)
Secret masking maskSecrets() applied to all headers and bodies before TrafficBuffer.push() — enabled by default (INSPECTOR_MASK_SECRETS=true)
Body size cap Bodies > INSPECTOR_MAX_BODY_KB (default 1024 KB) are truncated with "(truncated for performance)" notice
Sensitive header masking authorization, cookie, api-key, x-api-key, proxy-authorizationBearer *** in Headers tab; "Show secrets" toggle
CSP Strict Content Security Policy on Traffic Inspector pages to prevent XSS via injected response bodies
No persistence by default The TrafficBuffer is in-memory and lost on server restart. Sessions are persisted only when explicitly recorded

Hard Rules applied

Rule Application
#12 sanitizeErrorMessage All HTTP error responses from Traffic Inspector routes are sanitized
#15 + #17 isLocalOnlyPath() /api/tools/traffic-inspector/ is LOCAL_ONLY + SPAWN_CAPABLE (system proxy commands)

Known limitations

  • System-wide proxy mode affects all applications on the machine, including VPN clients and SSO. Always use with the auto-disable timer. Do not use on shared machines.
  • CONNECT tunnel HTTPS: Mode 3 (HTTP_PROXY) captures only tunnel metadata for HTTPS destinations unless TLS interception is enabled. This is by design — transparent capture without the AgentBridge cert being trusted would break TLS verification for those apps.
  • Hardcoded strings in some components: Some UI components (F7/F8) have a small number of hardcoded strings not yet covered by i18n keys. These are documented as a Known Limitation in the i18n gap report; they will be migrated in a follow-up pass. Affected strings are UI decorative labels that don't require translation for functional use.

§7 Troubleshooting

WebSocket disconnection

If the live tail shows "Disconnected":

  1. Check the server is still running: GET /api/tools/traffic-inspector/capture-modes
  2. Reload the page — the WebSocket reconnects and receives a fresh snapshot
  3. If the server was restarted, the in-memory buffer was cleared — old entries are gone unless a session was recorded

Port 8080 conflict

If HTTP_PROXY mode fails to start:

lsof -i :8080    # find the process

Change the port:

# .env
INSPECTOR_HTTP_PROXY_PORT=8888

System proxy not reverted

If OmniRoute crashes while system-wide proxy mode is active:

macOS:

networksetup -setwebproxystate Wi-Fi off
networksetup -setsecurewebproxystate Wi-Fi off

Linux (GNOME):

gsettings set org.gnome.system.proxy mode 'none'

Windows:

netsh winhttp reset proxy

The dashboard will also offer "Revert system proxy" on next load if it detects the DB state indicates proxy was active.

Buffer full

When the buffer reaches INSPECTOR_BUFFER_SIZE (default 1000), new entries rotate out the oldest. If important requests are being lost:

  • Increase INSPECTOR_BUFFER_SIZE (e.g., 5000) — trades memory for retention
  • Record a session to persist the relevant window to DB

§8 API reference

All routes are LOCAL_ONLY (loopback-only) and SPAWN_CAPABLE (system proxy commands). See src/server/authz/routeGuard.ts.

Base path: /api/tools/traffic-inspector/

Request management

Method Path Description
GET /requests List requests (filterable: ?profile=llm&host=&agent=&status=&source=&sessionId=)
GET /requests/{id} Single request details
DELETE /requests Clear the in-memory buffer
POST /requests/{id}/replay Re-execute the same request through OmniRoute router
PUT /requests/{id}/annotation Save or update a note on a request

WebSocket

Method Path Description
GET /ws Live WebSocket stream. Sends snapshot on connect, then new/update/clear events

Export

Method Path Description
GET /export.har Export current filtered list as HAR 1.2

Custom hosts

Method Path Description
GET /hosts List custom hosts
POST /hosts Add host (auto-edits /etc/hosts)
DELETE /hosts/{host} Remove host
PATCH /hosts/{host} Toggle enabled

Capture modes

Method Path Description
GET /capture-modes State of all 4 capture modes
POST /capture-modes/http-proxy Start/stop HTTP_PROXY listener ({action: "start"|"stop"})
POST /capture-modes/system-proxy Apply/revert system-wide proxy ({action: "apply"|"revert"})
POST /capture-modes/tls-intercept Toggle HTTPS body decryption in proxy mode

Sessions

Method Path Description
POST /sessions Start recording ({name?: string})
PATCH /sessions/{id} Stop or rename ({action: "stop"|"rename", name?: string})
GET /sessions List all saved sessions
GET /sessions/{id} Session snapshot (all requests)
DELETE /sessions/{id} Delete session
GET /sessions/{id}/export.har Export session as HAR 1.2

Internal ingest (D4 fallback)

Method Path Description
POST /internal/ingest Accepts intercepted request from server.cjs passthrough path; requires INSPECTOR_INTERNAL_INGEST_TOKEN header

Full OpenAPI schemas: docs/reference/openapi.yaml → tag Traffic Inspector.

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