HamzaMateen/ATAC

A simple API client (postman like) in your terminal

ATAC ⚔📩

Table Of Contents

• Description
• How to install
  • Install with cargo
  • Install with Homebrew
  • Install from AUR
  • Binary
  • Compile by yourself
• Features
  • Current
  • TODO v1.0.0
  • TODO v2.0.0
• Documentation
• Technical precisions
  • Tested on
  • Dependencies
  • Binary size
• Contributors
  • Maintainers
  • Packagers
• Star history
• License

Description

ATAC is Arguably a Terminal API Client. It is based on well-known clients such as Postman, Insomnia, or even Bruno, but inside your terminal without any specific graphical environment needed.

The philosophy of ATAC is to be free, account-less, and offline for now and forever.

How to install

Install with cargo

Important

First, make sure your rust version is at least 1.76

Simply use:

cargo install atac

Install from AUR

You can use your favorite AUR helper to install. For example,

paru -S atac

Install with Homebrew

Simply use:

brew tap julien-cpsn/atac
brew install atac

Binary

The binaries from the latest release can be found here

Important

Remember to run it from a terminal. For example, you can add the binary into your PATH. You won't be able to run it like other graphical applications since it needs CLI arguments.

Tip

Note for macOS users. After downloading the binary you may need to run the command sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine ~/bin/atac (modify to reflect the path where atac is located).

Compile by yourself

Important

First, make sure your rust version is at least 1.76

Simply clone the repository and use:

cargo run
cargo run -- -h

Tip

Build the latest release

cargo build --release

Features

Current

Features	ATAC	Postman	Insomnia
Manage collections & requests	✅	✅	✅
HTTP Client	✅	✅	✅
Methods	✅	✅	✅
- GET	✅	✅	✅
- POST	✅	✅	✅
- PUT	✅	✅	✅
- PATCH	✅	✅	✅
- DELETE	✅	✅	✅
- HEAD	✅	✅	✅
- OPTIONS	✅	✅	✅
Authentication	Partial	✅	✅
- Basic auth	✅	✅	✅
- Bearer token	✅	✅	✅
- JWT, Digest, OAuth1-2, AWS	❌ 🔜	✅	✅
Headers	✅	✅	✅
Body	✅	✅	✅
- Multipart form	✅	✅	✅
- URL Encoded form	✅	✅	✅
- File	✅	✅	✅
- Plain text	✅	✅	✅
- JSON, XML, HTML, Javascript	✅	✅	✅
Full response	✅	✅	✅
- Status code	✅	✅	✅
- Cookies	✅	✅	✅
- Headers	✅	✅	✅
- Duration	✅	✅	✅
Scripting	❌ 🔜	Partial	❌
- Pre-request script	❌ 🔜	❌	❌
- Post-request script	❌ 🔜	✅	❌
Asynchronous requests	✅	✅	✅
Per-request settings	✅	✅	✅
- Use proxy	✅	✅	✅
- Allow redirects	✅	✅	✅
- Store cookies	✅	✅	✅
WebSocket Client	❌ 🔜	✅	✅
GraphQL	❌ 🔜	✅	✅
gRPC	❌ 🔜	✅	✅
MQTT	❌ 🔜	✅	❌
Free	✅	Depends	Depends
Lightweight, fast and efficient	✅	❌	❌
Data storage	Your own committable, readable and versioned files	Tied to your account	Tied to your account
Offline	✅	❌	❌
Real-time collaboration	❌ (not planned)	✅	✅
Environment files and variables	✅ (committable, readable and versioned)	✅	✅
View options	✅	✅	✅
Global configuration file	✅	✅	✅
- HTTP/HTTPS Proxy	✅	✅	✅
- Disable CORS	✅	❌	❌
- Toggle syntax highlighting	✅	❌	❌
Postman v2.1.0 import	✅	✅	✅
OpenAPI import	❌ 🔜	✅	✅

TODO v1.0.0

• To add

  • Create a repo wiki
  • Document whole code
  • Copy response content to clipboard

• To improve

  • Sign binary

• To fix

  • Query parameters bug

TODO v2.0.0

• To add

  • Command line usage (send requests, add new requests)
  • keymap configuration (via a config file)
  • Request body syntax highlighting
  • Export a request to other code formats (curl, PHP, JS, Rust, ...)
  • Pre and post-request script (javascript v8 engine)
  • OpenAPI & Insomnia import

• To improve

  • Editing cookies
  • Auto-completion on env file variables
  • Manage multipart Content-type header (auto-generated for now)

TODO v3.0.0

• To add
  • WebSocket requests
  • Maybe GraphQL requests
  • Maybe MQTT requests
  • Maybe gRPC requests

Ideas (will think about it later)

• Base URL property on collections
• YAML support for collections file format

Documentation

Note

Documentation will soon be published in the wiki section

Technical precisions

Tested on

• Console Host
  • Windows 11 (Pro)
  • WSL2 Debian
  • Windows 10 (Pro)
  • Windows 8.1 (N)
• Ubuntu Desktop Terminal
  • Ubuntu 17.10
  • Pop!_OS 20.04
• (Arch, Manjaro) KDE Konsole
• (Arch, NixOS) Kitty
• Linux Mint
• (OpenSuse) Alacritty
• (Chrome OS) Crostini

(List from here)

Dependencies

Library	Version	Reason
reqwest & reqwest cookie store	0.11.27 & 0.6.0	Send requests
ratatui	0.26.1	Terminal UI framework
crossterm	0.27.0	Terminal Backend
tui-big-text	0.4.2	Display big texts. Only used for displaying ATAC in the homepage.
tui-tree-widget	0.19.0	Display tree-like lists. Used for displaying the collections.
tui-textarea	0.5.0	Text area that handle a lot of features. Used for editing request body.
throbber-widgets-tui	0.4.1	Display loading UI elements. Used when request is pending.
syntect	5.2.0	Syntax highlighting
serde & serde_json	1.0.197 & 1.0.144	Serialize & Deserialize application data into JSON files
jsonxf	0.1.1	Pretty print JSON
toml	0.8.11	Serialize & Deserialize application config files
envfile	0.2.1	Deserialize application environment files
My fork of postman_collection	0.2.1	Deserialize Postman collection files
clap	4.5.0	Command Line Argument Parser
tokio	1.0.0	Handle asynchronous requests
strum	0.26.2	Enum facilities
lazy_static	1.4.0	Allows for more flexible constants. Mainly used for accessing CLI arguments everywhere
regex	1.10.3	Regex. Using for parsing requests URL

Binary size

The binary file size goes from ~4.5 MB to ~7 MB depending on the platform. I try to keep it as small as possible.

Contributors

Maintainers

• @julien-cpsn

Packagers

• Cargo, Brew - @julien-cpsn
• Arch - @orhun

Star history

License

The MIT license for this project can be seen here