Roster HTTP Client

Roster is a modern HTTP client designed for the GNOME desktop, developed with GTK 4 and libadwaita. It allows sending requests, managing projects, automating flows with JavaScript, and securely storing credentials in the system keyring.

★★★★★

5.0(1 ratings)

• Sending HTTP requests. Supports the standard methods GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. The user can configure custom headers and request bodies in various formats. The response includes the status code, headers, and a syntax-highlighted body.
• Organization into projects. Groups related requests into projects. Each project maintains its own set of requests, variables, and scripts, making it easier to manage complex APIs.
• Persistent history. Automatically logs all sent requests. The history is preserved across sessions and allows for re-executing, modifying, or exporting previous requests.
• Environment variables. Defines reusable variables in headers, URLs, and request bodies. Supports multiple environments (development, production, testing) and allows switching between them with a single click.
• Secure credential storage. Integration with GNOME Keyring via libsecret. Variables marked as sensitive (tokens, passwords, API keys) are stored encrypted, while regular ones are saved in JSON.
• JavaScript preprocessing scripts. Executes JavaScript code before sending the request. Used to generate HMAC signatures, insert timestamps, obtain authentication tokens, or dynamically modify headers and body.
• JavaScript postprocessing scripts. Executes code upon receiving the response. Allows extracting values (session tokens, IDs), validating response schemas, or automatically chaining multiple requests.
• Request export. Converts requests to cURL format for sharing or running in a terminal. Allows exporting entire collections.
• Native GNOME interface. Follows libadwaita and GTK 4 design guidelines. Integrates system themes, standard keyboard shortcuts, and adaptive behavior.
• Syntax-highlighted display. Displays JSON, XML, and HTML bodies with formatting and colors. HTTP headers are presented in a structured and collapsible manner.
• Custom header management. Adds, edits, or deletes headers individually. Supports autocompletion for common headers (Content-Type, Authorization, Accept).
• Support for different body types. Allows sending data in raw, JSON, XML, URL-encoded form, and binary formats.

Development of Roster began in 2023. The primary author is Be, who maintains the repository at git.bugsy.cz. The application is written mainly in Python (98.6%) with components in Meson (1.4%) for the build process. It uses GJS for executing JavaScript scripts. The first stable version was released in 2024 and has since received contributions from the GNOME community.

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