IronCall

A fast, local-first API client for people who live in git.

Requests are plain YAML files you commit next to your code. Secrets stay on your machine. Nothing leaves your computer except the requests you send.

Features · Get started · User guide · File format · Changelog

Why IronCall

🗂️ Plain files, real diffs	A workspace is a folder of YAML with stable IDs and byte-identical re-saves. Review API changes in pull requests like any other code.
🔒 Secrets never hit the repo	Secret values live in the OS keychain or an encrypted file. They're masked in history, logs, the timeline and cURL exports.
⚡ Built for big responses	A 100MB response shows its first rows in under half a second and scrolls smoothly. Search and pretty-printing run in Rust, not in the UI.
✅ Tests without scripts	Declarative assertions and value extraction, chained requests, and a collection runner, with no JavaScript sandbox to trust.
📴 Offline and private	No account, no cloud sync, no telemetry. A built-in echo server means even the sample workspace works on a plane.

Features

Requests and responses

• Any HTTP method; path and query parameters kept in sync with the URL; JSON, text, XML, form, multipart and file bodies; Basic, Bearer and API key auth inherited from folders.
• Its own HTTP engine (hyper and rustls): HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, a DNS / connect / TLS / TTFB waterfall, TLS and certificate details, a curl -v-style timeline, proxies and extra CA certificates.
• Image, PDF and sandboxed HTML previews, plus a history of every send that you can search, reopen and resend.

A JSON body with {{$uuid}}, sent to the built-in echo server	Every variable's value and where it comes from

Plain files you can commit

Edits made in your editor or by git pull show up straight away, and conflicts with unsaved changes are handled. Renaming a request never renames its file, so git history stays easy to follow. See the file format reference.

Variables, environments and secrets

Global, collection, environment, folder and request variables, with highlighting, autocomplete and a resolved-request preview. Secrets are declared in the YAML, but their values are stored only on your machine. When a teammate clones the workspace, IronCall lists the secrets they still need to enter.

Testing and chaining

Assertions on status, headers, JSONPath, body text, time and size. Extract a token or an ID into a variable and the next request uses it. Run a whole workspace or folder with iterations, delays, stop on first failure or parallel mode, then copy the results as Markdown.

Assertions and extracted values, side by side with their results	The collection runner, with every assertion shown for each request

Import and export

Paste a cURL command into the URL bar to turn it into a request, and copy any request as cURL (bash or PowerShell) with secrets masked. Import OpenAPI 3.x and Swagger 2.0 specs into folders with an environment ready to go.

Fast to drive

Ctrl+P finds any request, and there are keyboard shortcuts for everything else. Dark and light themes, both checked against WCAG AA contrast, with automated accessibility audits of the main screen and every dialog.

Quick open (Ctrl+P)	The light theme

Get started

Download the AppImage or the .deb from the releases page. The .deb installs IronCall into your app menu (sudo apt install ./IronCall_*_amd64.deb; the command is ironcall). The AppImage needs chmod +x and FUSE 2 (libfuse2, or libfuse2t64 on Ubuntu 24.04).

Or build it yourself (docs/building.md lists the prerequisites):

npm --prefix ui install
just build      # target/release/bundle/deb/*.deb and appimage/*.AppImage
sudo apt install ./target/release/bundle/deb/IronCall_*_amd64.deb

On first launch, choose Try the sample workspace…. Its requests call IronCall's built-in echo server, so every example works offline. The user guide covers the rest.

IronCall 1.0 is for Linux. Windows support comes next (ADR 0004).

Documentation

• User guide
• File format reference
• Building and releasing
• Contributing, the plan and the architecture decisions
• Changelog

Development

npm --prefix ui install
just dev            # run the app with hot reload
just check          # formatting, lints, Rust and UI tests, cargo deny
just e2e            # end-to-end tests against the real app (WebDriver)
just screenshots    # regenerate the pictures in this README

Built with Rust (Tauri 2, hyper, rustls) and SolidJS.