What's Hurl?
Hurl is a command line tool that runs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format.
It can chain requests, capture values and evaluate queries on headers and body response. Hurl is very versatile: it can be used for both fetching data and testing HTTP sessions.
Hurl makes it easy to work with HTML content, REST / SOAP / GraphQL APIs, or any other XML / JSON based APIs.
# Get home:
GET https://example.org
HTTP 200
[Captures]
csrf_token: xpath "string(//meta[@name='_csrf_token']/@content)"
# Do login!
POST https://example.org/login?user=toto&password=1234
X-CSRF-TOKEN: {{csrf_token}}
HTTP 302
Chaining multiple requests is easy:
GET https://example.org/api/health
GET https://example.org/api/step1
GET https://example.org/api/step2
GET https://example.org/api/step3
Also an HTTP Test Tool
Hurl can run HTTP requests but can also be used to test HTTP responses. Different types of queries and predicates are supported, from [XPath] and [JSONPath] on body response, to assert on status code and response headers.
It is well adapted for REST / JSON APIs
POST https://example.org/api/tests
{
"id": "4568",
"evaluate": true
}
HTTP 200
[Asserts]
header "X-Frame-Options" == "SAMEORIGIN"
jsonpath "$.status" == "RUNNING" # Check the status code
jsonpath "$.tests" count == 25 # Check the number of items
jsonpath "$.id" matches /\d{4}/ # Check the format of the id
HTML content
GET https://example.org
HTTP 200
[Asserts]
xpath "normalize-space(//head/title)" == "Hello world!"
GraphQL
POST https://example.org/graphql
```graphql
{
human(id: "1000") {
name
height(unit: FOOT)
}
}
```
HTTP 200
and even SOAP APIs
POST https://example.org/InStock
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: "http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:m="https://example.org">
<soap:Header></soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
<m:GetStockPrice>
<m:StockName>GOOG</m:StockName>
</m:GetStockPrice>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
HTTP 200
Hurl can also be used to test the performance of HTTP endpoints
GET https://example.org/api/v1/pets
HTTP 200
[Asserts]
duration < 1000 # Duration in ms
And check response bytes
GET https://example.org/data.tar.gz
HTTP 200
[Asserts]
sha256 == hex,039058c6f2c0cb492c533b0a4d14ef77cc0f78abccced5287d84a1a2011cfb81;
Finally, Hurl is easy to integrate in CI/CD, with text, JUnit, TAP and HTML reports
Why Hurl?
- Text Format: for both devops and developers
- Fast CLI: a command line for local dev and continuous integration
- Single Binary: easy to install, with no runtime required
Powered by curl
Hurl is a lightweight binary written in [Rust]. Under the hood, Hurl HTTP engine is powered by [libcurl], one of the most powerful and reliable file transfer libraries. With its text file format, Hurl adds syntactic sugar to run and test HTTP requests, but it's still the [curl] that we love: fast, efficient and HTTP/3 ready.
Feedbacks
To support its development, [star Hurl on GitHub]!
[Feedback, suggestion, bugs or improvements] are welcome.
POST https://hurl.dev/api/feedback
{
"name": "John Doe",
"feedback": "Hurl is awesome!"
}
HTTP 200
Resources
[License]
[Blog]
[Tutorial]
[Documentation]
[GitHub]
Table of Contents
- Samples
- Manual
- Installation
Samples
To run a sample, edit a file with the sample content, and run Hurl:
$ vi sample.hurl
GET https://example.org
$ hurl sample.hurl
By default, Hurl behaves like [curl] and outputs the last HTTP response's [entry]. To have a test
oriented output, you can use [--test
option]:
$ hurl --test sample.hurl
A particular response can be saved with [[Options] section
][option]:
GET https://example.ord/cats/123
[Options]
output: cat123.txt # use - to output to stdout
HTTP 200
GET https://example.ord/dogs/567
HTTP 200
You can check [Hurl tests suite] for more samples.
Getting Data
A simple GET:
GET https://example.org
Requests can be chained:
GET https://example.org/a
GET https://example.org/b
HEAD https://example.org/c
GET https://example.org/c
HTTP Headers
A simple GET with headers:
GET https://example.org/news
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br
Connection: keep-alive
Query Params
GET https://example.org/news
[QueryStringParams]
order: newest
search: something to search
count: 100
Or:
GET https://example.org/news?order=newest&search=something%20to%20search&count=100
With
[QueryStringParams]
section, params don't need to be URL escaped.
Basic Authentication
GET https://example.org/protected
[BasicAuth]
bob: secret
This is equivalent to construct the request with a [Authorization] header:
# Authorization header value can be computed with `echo -n 'bob:secret' | base64`
GET https://example.org/protected
Authorization: Basic Ym9iOnNlY3JldA==
Basic authentication section allows per request authentication. If you want to add basic authentication to all the
requests of a Hurl file you could use [-u/--user
option]:
$ hurl --user bob:secret login.hurl
[--user
] option can also be set per request:
GET https://example.org/login
[Options]
user: bob:secret
HTTP 200
GET https://example.org/login
[Options]
user: alice:secret
HTTP 200
Passing Data between Requests
[Captures] can be used to pass data from one request to another:
POST https://sample.org/orders
HTTP 201
[Captures]
order_id: jsonpath "$.order.id"
GET https://sample.org/orders/{{order_id}}
HTTP 200
Sending Data
Sending HTML Form Data
POST https://example.org/contact
[FormParams]
default: false
token: {{token}}
email: john.doe@rookie.org
number: 33611223344
Sending Multipart Form Data
POST https://example.org/upload
[MultipartFormData]
field1: value1
field2: file,example.txt;
# One can specify the file content type:
field3: file,example.zip; application/zip
Multipart forms can also be sent with a [multiline string body]:
POST https://example.org/upload
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary="boundary"
```
--boundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="key1"
value1
--boundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="upload1"; filename="data.txt"
Content-Type: text/plain
Hello World!
--boundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="upload2"; filename="data.html"
Content-Type: text/html
<div>Hello <b>World</b>!</div>
--boundary--
```
In that case, files have to be inlined in the Hurl file.
Posting a JSON Body
With an inline JSON:
POST https://example.org/api/tests
{
"id": "456",
"evaluate": true
}
With a local file:
POST https://example.org/api/tests
Content-Type: application/json
file,data.json;
Templating a JSON Body
PUT https://example.org/api/hits
Content-Type: application/json
{
"key0": "{{a_string}}",
"key1": {{a_bool}},
"key2": {{a_null}},
"key3": {{a_number}}
}
Variables can be initialized via command line:
$ hurl --variable a_string=apple \
--variable a_bool=true \
--variable a_null=null \
--variable a_number=42 \
test.hurl
Resulting in a PUT request with the following JSON body:
{
"key0": "apple",
"key1": true,
"key2": null,
"key3": 42
}
Templating a XML Body
Using templates with [XML body] is not currently supported in Hurl. You can use templates in [XML multiline string body] with variables to send a variable XML body:
POST https://example.org/echo/post/xml
```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Request>
<Login>{{login}}</Login>
<Password>{{password}}</Password>
</Request>
```
Using GraphQL Query
A simple GraphQL query:
POST https://example.org/starwars/graphql
```graphql
{
human(id: "1000") {
name
height(unit: FOOT)
}
}
```
A GraphQL query with variables:
POST https://example.org/starwars/graphql
```graphql
query Hero($episode: Episode, $withFriends: Boolean!) {
hero(episode: $episode) {
name
friends @include(if: $withFriends) {
name
}
}
}
variables {
"episode": "JEDI",
"withFriends": false
}
```
GraphQL queries can also use [Hurl