gurl

A simple, colorful CLI wrapper around curl for easier terminal usage.

Features

• 🎨 Syntax-highlighted JSON - Pretty print responses with colored output
• 📄 Request files - Load headers and body from JSON files
• 🔍 Smart JSON detection - Auto-adds Content-Type: application/json when sending JSON
• 🏠 Localhost shorthand - Use :3000/api instead of http://localhost:3000/api
• ⏱️ Response timing - See how long requests take
• 🎯 Method coloring - Visual distinction between GET, POST, PUT, DELETE
• 🔗 Pass-through - Send any curl flag with --

Installation

cargo install --path .

Development

Pre-commit Hooks

This project uses pre-commit hooks to ensure code quality. To set them up:

1. Install pre-commit:

   # Using pip
   pip install pre-commit
   
   # Or using homebrew (macOS)
   brew install pre-commit

2. Install the git hooks:

   pre-commit install

The hooks will automatically:

• Format code with cargo fmt before each commit
• Run cargo clippy to catch linting issues

To manually run the hooks:

pre-commit run --all-files

Usage

Basic Requests

# Simple GET
gurl https://api.example.com/users

# With pretty JSON output
gurl --pretty https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1

# Localhost shorthand
gurl :3000/api/users
gurl :8080/health

POST/PUT with Data

# POST with JSON (Content-Type auto-detected)
gurl -m POST -d '{"name":"John"}' https://api.example.com/users

# With pretty output and verbose mode
gurl --pretty -v -m POST -d '{"title":"Hello"}' https://api.example.com/posts

Request Files

Load complex requests from JSON files:

# Load entire request from file
gurl --file request.json --pretty

# Override URL from file
gurl --file request.json https://different-url.com

# Override method from file
gurl --file request.json -m PUT

Request file format:

{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "https://api.example.com/users",
  "headers": {
    "Authorization": "Bearer token123",
    "X-Custom": "value"
  },
  "body": {
    "name": "John",
    "email": "john@example.com"
  }
}

Headers can also be an array:

{
  "headers": [
    "Authorization: Bearer token123",
    "Content-Type: application/json"
  ],
  "body": { "key": "value" }
}

Headers & Auth

# Custom headers
gurl -H "Authorization: Bearer token123" https://api.example.com/me

# Basic auth
gurl -u admin:password https://api.example.com/admin

# Multiple headers
gurl -H "Accept: application/json" -H "X-Custom: value" https://api.example.com

Options

Flag	Long	Description
-m	--method	HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH)
-d	--data	Request body (JSON auto-detected)
-H	--headers	Add header (repeatable)
-f	--file	Load request from JSON file
-p	--pretty	Pretty print JSON with syntax highlighting
-v	--verbose	Show full curl command and request details
-s	--silent	Suppress progress meter
-L	--location	Follow redirects
-t	--timeout	Request timeout in seconds
-o	--output	Save response to file
-u	--user	Basic auth (user:password)
-i	--include	Include response headers

Pass-through to curl

Use -- to pass additional flags directly to curl:

# Follow redirects and compressed response
gurl https://example.com -- -L --compressed

# Custom certificate
gurl https://internal.example.com -- --cacert /path/to/cert.pem

Examples

# GET with pretty JSON
gurl --pretty https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1

# POST with auto Content-Type
gurl -m POST -d '{"userId":1,"title":"foo","body":"bar"}' \
  --pretty https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts

# Using a request file
gurl --file examples/create_post.json --pretty -v

# Quick localhost API testing
gurl :3000/api/health
gurl -m POST -d '{"email":"test@example.com"}' :3000/api/register

Output

With --pretty, you get:

• Blue keys in JSON objects
• Green strings
• Cyan numbers
• Yellow booleans
• Magenta null values
• Color-coded HTTP methods (green GET, yellow POST, red DELETE, etc.)
• Response timing

License

MIT