Architecture

Architecture

restless is an Electron app, written in TypeScript with React and React Router.

Packages

Package	Purpose
packages/insomnia	The desktop app
packages/insomnia-data	Data models, services and NeDB storage
packages/insomnia-inso	The rl CLI
packages/insomnia-scripting-environment	Script APIs
packages/insomnia-testing	Test generation and runner
packages/insomnia-smoke-test	End-to-end tests
packages/restless-plugin-secret-managers	Secret manager plugin

Internal folders keep their insomnia names on purpose. It keeps future merges from Insomnia practical. See Decisions.

Processes

Process	Role
Main	Windows, menus, network, Git and files
Renderer	React interface
Plugin window	Runs plugins
Hidden window	Runs user scripts
Utility processes	AI generation and spec linting
Web worker	Template rendering

The renderer calls the main process over IPC. Handlers live in src/main/ipc, and are exposed in src/entry.preload.ts.

Data model

Organization
  Project
    Workspace (collection, spec, mock server, MCP or environment)
      Environment and sub-environments
      Cookie jar
      Folders
        Requests

There is one built-in local organization.

Requests

HTTP goes through libcurl using node-libcurl. Release builds on Linux and macOS link a static libcurl, built in CI by .github/actions/static-libcurl. Local builds use the system libcurl.

Title bar

macOS uses the native menu and window controls.

On Windows and Linux, the window is frameless. The menu bar is drawn by the app from the Electron menu, in title-bar-menu.tsx. Window controls come from Chromium's window controls overlay.

• nativeTheme.themeSource is set before the window is created, so the controls match the theme.
• The overlay sits above the page, so syncTitleBarColors recolors it when a dialog opens.
• On Linux, the icons follow the GTK theme.

Git

Git runs through isomorphic-git, so a Git install isn't required.