REST Client

REST Client allows you to send HTTP request and view the response in Visual Studio Code directly. It eliminates the need for a separate tool to test REST APIs and makes API testing convenient and efficient.

Main Features

• Send/Cancel/Rerun HTTP request in editor and view response in a separate pane with syntax highlight
• Send GraphQL query and author GraphQL variables in editor
• Send cURL command in editor and copy HTTP request as cURL command
• Auto save and view/clear request history
• Compose MULTIPLE requests in a single file (separated by ### delimiter)
• View image response directly in pane
• Save raw response and response body only to local disk
• Fold and unfold response body
• Customize font(size/family/weight) in response preview
• Preview response with expected parts(headers only, body only, full response and both request and response)
• Authentication support for:
  • Basic Auth
  • Digest Auth
  • SSL Client Certificates
  • Azure Active Directory
  • Microsoft Identity Platform
  • AWS Signature v4
  • AWS Cognito
• Environments and custom/system variables support
  • Use variables in any place of request(URL, Headers, Body)
  • Support environment, file, request and prompt custom variables
  • Interactively assign prompt custom variables per request
  • Auto completion and hover support for both environment, file and request custom variables
  • Diagnostic support for request, file and prompt custom variables
  • Go to definition support for request and file custom variables
  • Find all references support ONLY for file custom variables
  • Provide system dynamic variables
    • {{$guid}}
    • {{$randomInt min max}}
    • {{$timestamp [offset option]}}
    • {{$datetime rfc1123|iso8601 [offset option]}}
    • {{$localDatetime rfc1123|iso8601 [offset option]}}
    • {{$processEnv [%]envVarName}}
    • {{$dotenv [%]variableName}}
    • {{$aadToken [new] [public|cn|de|us|ppe] [<domain|tenantId>] [aud:<domain|tenantId>]}}
    • {{$oidcAccessToken [new] [<clientId:<clientId>] [<callbackPort:<callbackPort>] [authorizeEndpoint:<authorizeEndpoint}] [tokenEndpoint:<tokenEndpoint}] [scopes:<scopes}] [audience:<audience}]}
  • Easily create/update/delete environments and environment variables in setting file
  • File variables can reference both custom and system variables
  • Support environment switch
  • Support shared environment to provide variables that available in all environments
• Generate code snippets for HTTP request in languages like Python, JavaScript and more!
• Remember Cookies for subsequent requests
• Proxy support
• Send SOAP requests, as well as snippet support to build SOAP envelope easily
• HTTP language support
  • .http and .rest file extensions support
  • Syntax highlight (Request and Response)
  • Auto completion for method, url, header, custom/system variables, mime types and so on
  • Comments (line starts with # or //) support
  • Support json and xml body indentation, comment shortcut and auto closing brackets
  • Code snippets for operations like GET and POST
  • Support navigate to symbol definitions(request and file level custom variable) in open http file
  • CodeLens support to add an actionable link to send request
  • Fold/Unfold for request block
• Support for Markdown fenced code blocks with either http or rest

Usage

In editor, type an HTTP request as simple as below:

https://example.com/comments/1

Or, you can follow the standard RFC 2616 that including request method, headers, and body.

POST https://example.com/comments HTTP/1.1
content-type: application/json

{
    "name": "sample",
    "time": "Wed, 21 Oct 2015 18:27:50 GMT"
}

To send a prepared request, you have several options. The easiest way is to click the Send Request link above the request. This link will appear automatically if the file's language mode is set to HTTP. You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+R(Cmd+Alt+R for macOS), right-click in the editor and select Send Request from the context menu, or press F1 and select/type Rest Client: Send Request.

The response will be previewed in a separate webview panel inside Visual Studio Code. If you prefer to use the full power of searching, selecting, or manipulating in Visual Studio Code, you can preview the response in an untitled document by setting rest-client.previewResponseInUntitledDocument to true.

When you issue a request, a waiting spin icon will appear in the status bar until the response is received. You can click the spin icon to cancel the request. Once the response is received, the waiting icon will be replaced with the total duration and response size. By hovering over the total duration in the status bar, you can view a breakdown of the response time, including details on Socket, DNS, TCP, First Byte and Download. By hovering over the response size displayed in the status bar, you can view a breakdown of the response size details for both the headers and body.

The shortcuts in the REST Client Extension can be accessed exclusively when using the file language modes http and plaintext.

Select Request Text

If you need to store multiple requests in the same file and execute them at your convenience, REST Client Extension has got you covered. By using the three or more consecutive # symbol as a delimiter, you can create a separation between the requests that the extension can recognize. Once you have done this, simply place your cursor between the delimiters of the desired request, issue it as usual, and the extension will send it out without any hassle.

GET https://example.com/comments/1 HTTP/1.1

###

GET https://example.com/topics/1 HTTP/1.1

###

POST https://example.com/comments HTTP/1.1
content-type: application/json

{
    "name": "sample",
    "time": "Wed, 21 Oct 2015 18:27:50 GMT"
}

REST Client extension also provides the flexibility that you can send the request with your selected text in editor.

Install

Press F1, type ext install then search for rest-client.

Making Request

Request Line

The first non-empty line of the selection (or document if nothing is selected) is the Request Line. Below are some examples of Request Line:

GET https://example.com/comments/1 HTTP/1.1

GET https://example.com/comments/1

https://example.com/comments/1

If request method is omitted, request will be treated as GET, so above requests are the same after parsing.

Query Strings

You can always write query strings in the request line, like:

GET https://example.com/comments?page=2&pageSize=10

Sometimes there may be several query parameters in a single request, putting all the query parameters in Request Line is difficult to read and modify. So we allow you to spread query parameters into multiple lines(one line one query parameter), we will parse the lines in immediately after the Request Line which starts with ? and &, like

GET https://example.com/comments
    ?page=2
    &pageSize=10

Request Headers

Once you've written your Request line, the lines that immediately follow until the first empty line will be parsed as Request Headers. These headers should follow the standard field-name: field-value format, with each line representing a single header. By default if you don't explicitly specify a User-Agent header, REST Client Extension will automatically add one with the value vscode-restclient. However, if you want to change the default value, you can do so in the rest-client.defaultHeaders setting.

Below are examples of Request Headers:

User-Agent: rest-client
Accept-Language: en-GB,en-US;q=0.8,en;q=0.6,zh-CN;q=0.4
Content-Type: application/json

Request Body

If you want to provide a request body, simply add a blank line following the request headers, as demonstrated in the POST example in the usage section. Anything written after the blank line will be treated as Request Body content. Here are some examples:

POST https://example.com/comments HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/xml
Authorization: token xxx

<request>
    <name>sample</name>
    <time>Wed, 21 Oct 2015 18:27:50 GMT</time>
</request>

You can also specify file path to use as a body, which starts with < , the file path(whitespaces should be preserved) can be either in absolute or relative(relative to workspace root or current http file) formats:

POST https://example.com/comments HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/xml
Authorization: token xxx

< C:\Users\Default\Desktop\demo.xml

POST https://example.com/comments HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/xml
Authorization: token xxx

< ./demo.xml

If you want to use variables in that file, you'll have to use an @ to ensure variables are processed when referencing a file (UTF-8 is assumed as the default encoding)

POST https://example.com/comments HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/xml
Authorization: token xxx

<@ ./demo.xml

to override the default encoding, simply type it next to the @ like the below example

POST https://example.com/comments HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/xml
Authorization: token xxx

<@latin1 ./demo.xml

When content type of request body is multipart/form-data, you may have the mixed format of the request body as follows:

POST https://api.example.com/user/upload
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundary7MA4YWxkTrZu0gW

------WebKitFormBoundary7MA4YWxkTrZu0gW
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="text"

title
------WebKitFormBoundary7MA4YWxkTrZu0gW
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="image"; filename="1.png"
Content-Type: image/png

< ./1.png
------WebKitFormBoundary7MA4YWxkTrZu0gW--

When content type of request body is application/x-www-form-urlencoded, you may even divide the request body into multiple lines. And each key and value pair should occupy a single line which starts with &:

POST https://api.example.com/login HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

name=foo
&password=bar

When your mouse is over the document link, you can Ctrl+Click(Cmd+Click for macOS) to open the file in a new tab.

Making GraphQL Request

With GraphQL support in REST Client extension, you can author and send GraphQL query using the request body. Besides that you can also author GraphQL variables in the request body. GraphQL variables part in request body is optional, you also need to add a blank line between GraphQL query and variables if you need it.

You can specify a request as GraphQL Request by adding a custom request header X-Request-Type: GraphQL in your headers. The following code illustrates this:

POST https://api.github.com/graphql
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer xxx
X-REQUEST-TYPE: GraphQL

query ($name: String!, $owner: String!) {
  repository(name: $name, owner: $owner) {
    name
    fullName: nameWithOwner
    description
    diskUsage
    forkCount
    stargazers(first: 5) {
        totalCount
        nodes {
            login
            name
        }
    }
    watchers {
        totalCount
    }
  }
}

{
    "name": "vscode-restclient",
    "owner": "Huachao"
}

Making cURL Request

We add the capability to directly run curl request in REST Client extension. The issuing request command is the same as raw HTTP one. REST Client will automatically parse the request with specified parser.

REST Client doesn't fully support all the options of cURL, since underneath we use request library to send request which doesn't accept all the cURL options. Supported options are listed below:

• -X, --request
• -L, --location, --url
• -H, --header(no @ support)
• -I, --head
• -b, --cookie(no cookie jar file support)
• -u, --user(Basic auth support only)
• -d, --data, --data-ascii,--data-binary, --data-raw

Copy Request As cURL

If you need to quickly obtain the curl format of an HTTP request and save it to your clipboard, you can use a handy shortcut. Simply hit F1 and select/type Rest Client: Copy Request As cURL. Alternatively, you can right-click in the editor and select Copy Request As cURL.

Cancel Request

If you want to cancel a processing request, click the waiting spin icon or use shortcut Ctrl+Alt+K(Cmd+Alt+K for macOS), or press F1 and then select/type Rest Client: Cancel Request.

Rerun Last Request

Sometimes you may want to refresh the API response, now you could do it simply using shortcut Ctrl+Alt+L(Cmd+Alt+L for macOS), or press F1 and then select/type Rest Client: Rerun Last Request to rerun the last request.

Request History

Every time you send an http request, the request details, including method, url, headers, and body, are saved into a file for future reference. To access this content, you can use the shortcut Ctrl+Alt+H(Cmd+Alt+H for macOS), or press F1 and then select/type Rest Client: Request History. This will allow you to view the last 50 request items in time reversing order, displaying the method, url, and request time for each one. After specified request history item is selected, the request details would be displayed in a temp file, you can view the request details or follow previous step to trigger the request again.

You can also clear request history by pressing F1 and then selecting/typing Rest Client: Clear Request History.

Save Full Response

In the upper right corner of the response preview tab, we add a new icon to save the latest response to local file system. After you click the Save Full Response icon, it will prompt the window with the saved response file path. You can click the Open button to open the saved response file in current workspace or click Copy Path to copy the saved response path to clipboard.

Save Response Body

Another icon in the upper right corner of the response preview tab is the Save Response Body button, it will only save the response body ONLY to local file system. The extension of saved file is set according to the response MIME type, like if the Content-Type value in response header is application/json, the saved file will have extension .json. You can also overwrite the MIME type and extension mapping according to your requirement with the rest-client.mimeAndFileExtensionMapping setting.

"rest-client.mimeAndFileExtensionMapping": {