Can I edit a .bru file with a text editor?

[Rod-at-DOH]

I have a repo where I save all of my Brune files, so I can migrate them from desktop to laptop, and back again. I found that I had made a mistake in one of them, but for some reason when I edited it in Bruno, it didn't save it. So, I thought I'd edit it with VS Code. I saved it, committed it locally, the pushed to the remote. Then I created a PR to migrate what I'd done in the child branch back to the main branch.

However, later when I looked at it in GitHub.com, it was still wrong. This makes me wonder if the Bruno application saves the file in some format, that VS Code doesn't save?

[TheMysteriousGhost]

Yes, .bru files are plain text, so editing them in VS Code is completely fine. There's no hidden or binary format, and Bruno watches the collection folder, so it picks up changes made outside the app.

So the problem is almost certainly on the git side, not the file format. A few things worth checking:

1. Was the PR actually merged? If it's still open, main on GitHub keeps showing the old version.
2. Are you looking at the right branch on GitHub? The file view defaults to main, so before the merge you'll see the old content there.
3. Is the edit in the commit? git log -p -- path/to/your-request.bru shows every change to that file. Make sure your fix is in there.
4. Did the other machine put the old version back? If Bruno was open on the laptop with the old request and it got saved and pushed later, that would overwrite your fix. It'll show up as a later commit in the same git log -p output.

On the edit not saving inside Bruno: it only writes to disk when you save the request (Ctrl+S / Cmd+S), so if the tab was closed or the app quit before that, the change is lost.

[TheMysteriousGhost]

That's the cause then. And yes, Remove is the one: in current Bruno versions it's what "close" became. It only removes the collection from Bruno's sidebar and doesn't delete anything. The confirmation dialog even says the files "will still be available in the filesystem at the above location".

One thing first: the copy Bruno has been using may contain edits you made in Bruno that never reached your repo. Compare the two folders (or just open that request's .bru file in both) and copy anything you want to keep into the repo before removing.

Then:

1. Right-click the collection → Remove.
2. Open Collection and pick the collection folder inside your git repo (the one containing bruno.json).
3. Check with Reveal in File Explorer again. It should now point into your repo.

After that, Bruno, VS Code and git all work on the same files. Once everything matches, you can delete or archive the old folder so this can't happen again.

[Rod-at-DOH]

Hi @sknoyon324234234234, I've compared and made the necessary adjustments. Then I started removing collections from the repo I want to ignore, and Open Collection from the location I want to use. However, Bruno still showed it being in the wrong location. Do I do an Import Collection instead?

[TheMysteriousGhost]

No, skip Import Collection. That makes a brand new copy somewhere else, which is the opposite of what you want here.

Bruno opens collections purely by folder path, so if it opened the folder from your repo, it can't show the old location. What usually happens is one of these:

1. The old copy is still in the sidebar. Both copies have the same name (it comes from bruno.json), so after opening the repo one you end up with two identical-looking entries, and it's easy to click the old one. Right-click → Reveal in File Explorer on each entry with that name, and Remove the one that isn't in your repo.
2. The wrong folder was picked in Open Collection. It needs to be the folder that directly contains bruno.json, not its parent or a subfolder.

What I'd do for a clean slate:

1. Remove every entry of that collection from the sidebar (it only takes them out of Bruno, doesn't delete files)
2. Restart Bruno
3. Open Collection → go into your repo → select the folder with bruno.json in it
4. Reveal in File Explorer once more to confirm it's the repo path

If it still points at the old place after that, could you post the two paths, the one Reveal shows and the one of your repo? That'll make it obvious what's going on.

[Rod-at-DOH]

OK, thank you, I'll work on this later today, hopefully

[Rod-at-DOH]

@sknoyon324234234234 there are 4 Bruno.json files in the folder structure, that I was using.

I'll try to use them all.

[mustaphaelou]

.bru files are plain text (a small YAML-like format), so editing them in VS Code is fine — there's no proprietary encoding. If the change looked wrong on GitHub, the likely causes are git/PR flow rather than the editor:

1. Confirm the file actually changed locally:
   git status
   git diff path/to/file.bru
2. Confirm the commit and branch you pushed:
   git log --oneline -3
   git show --stat HEAD
3. Make sure the PR base/branch is the one you expect and that it was actually merged (check the PR's "Files changed" tab).
4. If Bruno was open while you edited, it may hold in-memory state; close/reopen it after pulling so it reloads from disk.

Also verify there's no .gitattributes/line-ending or filter that could normalize the file on commit, and that you didn't accidentally edit a copy outside the repo.

If this helps you track it down, please mark this comment as the answer — thanks!