⚡ Flash HTTP CLI

A fast, simple, and powerful HTTP client for your terminal - like Postman, but in CLI with AI API support

Flash is a beautiful, terminal-based HTTP client that brings the power of API testing to your command line. Built with C and libcurl, it offers a clean Gruvbox-themed interface that's easy on the eyes and powerful in functionality. Now with integrated AI API support for Claude, GPT, Gemini, and more!

✨ Features

🌐 GET Requests - Fetch data from any REST API with auto-generated code snippets
📤 POST Requests - Send form data and JSON payloads with multi-line support
🤖 AI API Integration - Direct API calls to Claude, GPT, Gemini, Groq, Cohere, and Mistral
📋 Code Generation - Auto-generate request code in JavaScript, Node.js, Python, C#, and Java
📄 Smart Clipboard - Copy generated code directly to clipboard (supports xclip, xsel, wl-copy, pbcopy)
🎨 Beautiful UI - Gruvbox dark theme with intuitive navigation
⚡ Fast & Lightweight - Built in C for maximum performance
🔄 Auto-Updates - Built-in self-update mechanism from GitHub releases
🛡️ Memory Safe - Proper memory management and error handling
📱 Cross-Platform - Works on Linux, macOS, and Termux

📸 Screenshots

Main Menu

Clean and intuitive main interface with AI API option

POST Method Selection

Easy content-type selection for POST requests

AI API Request

Integrated AI API support with auto-detection for major providers

🚀 Quick Start

Download Pre-built Binary (Recommended)

Download the latest release for Linux:

# Download the latest release
wget https://github.com/aadityansha06/Flash-Http-cli/releases/latest/download/flash-linux-x64

# Make it executable
chmod +x flash-linux-x64

# Run Flash
./flash-linux-x64

Build from Source

Prerequisites

GCC compiler
libcurl development libraries
Make (optional)

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential libcurl4-openssl-dev

# Optional: Install clipboard tools for code copying
sudo apt install xclip

CentOS/RHEL/Fedora

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install gcc libcurl-devel

# Fedora
sudo dnf install gcc libcurl-devel xclip

macOS

# Using Homebrew
brew install curl

# pbcopy is pre-installed on macOS

Compilation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aadityansha06/Flash-Http-cli.git
cd Flash-Http-cli

# Build using make
make

# Or compile manually
gcc Flash-cli.c -o flash -lcurl

# Run
./flash

Termux Installation

# Install dependencies
pkg update && pkg upgrade
pkg install clang curl

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/aadityansha06/Flash-Http-cli.git
cd Flash-Http-cli

# Compile
clang Flash-cli.c -o flash -lcurl

# Run
./flash

Note: You may see warnings about getchar() return values or empty-body while loops during compilation. These warnings are safe to ignore — the program will still run fine.

🔧 Usage

GET Requests

Select option 1 from the main menu
Enter the URL (e.g., https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1)
View the formatted response
New! Generate code snippets in your preferred language:
- JavaScript (Fetch API)
- Node.js (Axios)
- Python (Requests)
- C# (HttpClient)
- Java (HttpURLConnection)

POST Requests - Form Data

Select option 2 from the main menu
Choose 1 for Form Data
Enter the number of fields
Enter each field in format: key=value
Enter the target URL
Send the request and optionally generate code snippets

Example:

Number of fields: 3
Field 1: name=John Doe
Field 2: email=john@example.com
Field 3: age=25

POST Requests - JSON

Select option 2 from the main menu
Choose 2 for JSON Data
Enter JSON data line by line
Press Enter twice to finish input
Enter the target URL
Send the request and optionally generate code snippets

Example:

{
  "name": "Flash User",
  "email": "user@example.com",
  "active": true
}

AI API Requests (NEW!)

Select option 3 from the main menu
Enter the API endpoint URL
Enter the model name (e.g., claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022, gpt-4, gemini-pro)
Enter your API key (input is hidden for security)
Set temperature (0-1, default 0.5)
Enter your message/prompt
View the AI response

Supported AI Providers:

Anthropic Claude - Auto-detects anthropic.com URLs
OpenAI GPT - Auto-detects openai.com URLs
Google Gemini - Auto-detects generativelanguage.googleapis.com URLs
Groq - Auto-detects groq.com URLs
Cohere - Auto-detects cohere.ai URLs
Mistral - Auto-detects mistral.ai URLs
Custom APIs - Falls back to Bearer token authentication

📚 Examples

Testing REST APIs

# GET request to fetch user data
URL: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users/1

# POST form data to create a user
Number of fields: 3
Field 1: name=Flash User
Field 2: email=flash@example.com
Field 3: phone=1234567890
URL: https://httpbin.org/post

# POST JSON data
{
  "title": "Flash HTTP CLI",
  "body": "A powerful terminal HTTP client",
  "userId": 1
}
URL: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts

AI API Examples

Claude API

URL: https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages
Model: claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022
API Key: sk-ant-api03-...
Temperature: 0.7
Message: Write a hello world program in Python

OpenAI API

URL: https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions
Model: gpt-4
API Key: sk-...
Temperature: 0.5
Message: Explain quantum computing in simple terms

Google Gemini API

URL: https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-pro:generateContent
Model: gemini-pro
API Key: AIza...
Temperature: 0.8
Message: Generate a creative story about a robot

🎨 Theme

Flash uses the Gruvbox Dark color scheme for a comfortable terminal experience:

🟤 Background: Dark, easy on the eyes
🟨 Highlights: Warm yellows and oranges
🟩 Success: Bright green indicators
🟥 Errors: Clear red error messages
🔵 Info: Cool blue accents
🟪 Special: Purple for AI features

🔧 Advanced Features

Auto-Update System

Flash includes a built-in auto-update mechanism:

Checks GitHub releases on startup
Compares current version with latest release
Prompts for update if new version available
Downloads and installs updates automatically
Backs up current version before updating

To skip update checks, set:

export FLASH_SKIP_UPDATE=1

Code Snippet Generation

After making GET or POST requests, Flash can generate production-ready code snippets:

Supported Languages:

JavaScript - Modern Fetch API with error handling
Node.js - Axios with promises
Python - Requests library
C# - HttpClient with async/await
Java - HttpURLConnection with proper resource management

Smart Clipboard Integration

Flash automatically detects and uses available clipboard tools:

Linux: xclip, xsel, wl-copy (Wayland)
macOS: pbcopy (built-in)
Fallback: Saves to flash_snippet.txt if no clipboard tool found

JSON Security

Flash includes automatic JSON escaping to prevent injection:

Escapes quotes, backslashes, newlines
Handles special characters properly
Validates JSON structure

URL Encoding

Form data is automatically URL-encoded:

# Spaces become +
name=John Doe → name=John+Doe

# Special characters use % encoding  
email=user@domain.com → email=user%40domain.com

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

🍴 Fork the repository
🌿 Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
💾 Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
🚀 Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
🎯 Open a Pull Request

Development Setup

git clone https://github.com/aadityansha06/Flash-Http-cli.git
cd Flash-Http-cli

# Install development dependencies
sudo apt install build-essential libcurl4-openssl-dev

# Build with debug symbols
gcc -g -Wall -o flash-dev Flash-cli.c -lcurl

# Test
./flash-dev

Contributors

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to Flash HTTP CLI! 🙏

Core Team

@aadityansha06 - Creator & Maintainer

Contributors

@dexter-xD - Enhanced JSON input with multi-line support and improved UI alignment (#6)
@sakshamg567 - Improved form-data input handling (#2)

Want to contribute? Check out our open issues or raise a PR! 😊

🛠️ Project Structure

Flash-Http-cli/
├── Flash-cli.c           # Main source code
├── lib/
│   └── header-file.h     # Color definitions and includes
├── version.h             # Version information
├── Makefile              # Build configuration
├── README.md             # This file
├── LICENSE               # MIT License
└── screenshots/          # UI screenshots

🐛 Known Issues

Windows support requires WSL or manual libcurl setup
Very large responses (>1GB) may cause memory issues
Clipboard functionality requires additional packages on some systems

📋 Roadmap

🔒 Security

API keys are hidden during input (terminal echo disabled)
No sensitive data is logged or stored
Memory is properly freed after use
Input validation for all user data
JSON escaping prevents injection attacks

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

💻 System Requirements

Minimum

Linux/macOS/Termux
1 MB free disk space
libcurl 7.x or higher

🆘 Troubleshooting

Compilation Errors

Error: curl/curl.h not found

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install libcurl4-openssl-dev

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install libcurl-devel

# macOS
brew install curl

Error: undefined reference to curl_easy_init

# Make sure to link with -lcurl flag
gcc Flash-cli.c -o flash -lcurl

Runtime Issues

Clipboard not working

# Install clipboard tool
sudo apt install xclip  # or xsel, wl-clipboard

Update check fails

# Skip update checks
export FLASH_SKIP_UPDATE=1
./flash

API request fails

Verify your API key is correct
Check your internet connection
Ensure the API endpoint URL is accurate
Verify the model name matches your API provider

💬 Support

📧 Open an issue on GitHub
💬 Start a discussion in the repository
🐛 Report bugs with detailed reproduction steps

🙏 Acknowledgments

libcurl - The fantastic HTTP library powering Flash
Gruvbox - The beautiful color scheme
Inspired by Postman - The API development platform
Thanks to all AI providers for their amazing APIs

👨‍💻 Author

Aadityansh

GitHub: @aadityansha06
Project Link: https://github.com/aadityansha06/Flash-Http-cli

⚡ Flash HTTP CLI - Fast, Simple, Powerful ⚡

Made with ❤️ using C and libcurl

⭐ Star this repo | 🐛 Report Bug | ✨ Request Feature

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 42 Commits
.vscode		.vscode
Developer-Docs		Developer-Docs
lib		lib
screenshots		screenshots
.gitignore		.gitignore
Flash-cli.c		Flash-cli.c
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md
flash-linux-x64		flash-linux-x64

License

aadityansha06/Flash-Http-cli

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⚡ Flash HTTP CLI

✨ Features

📸 Screenshots

Main Menu

POST Method Selection

AI API Request

🚀 Quick Start

Download Pre-built Binary (Recommended)

Build from Source

Prerequisites

Ubuntu/Debian

CentOS/RHEL/Fedora

macOS

Compilation

Termux Installation

🔧 Usage

GET Requests

POST Requests - Form Data

POST Requests - JSON

AI API Requests (NEW!)

📚 Examples

Testing REST APIs

AI API Examples

Claude API

OpenAI API

Google Gemini API

🎨 Theme

🔧 Advanced Features

Auto-Update System

Code Snippet Generation

Smart Clipboard Integration

JSON Security

URL Encoding

🤝 Contributing

Development Setup

Contributors

Core Team

Contributors

🛠️ Project Structure

🐛 Known Issues

📋 Roadmap

🔒 Security

📄 License

💻 System Requirements

Minimum

Recommended

🆘 Troubleshooting

Compilation Errors

Runtime Issues

💬 Support

🙏 Acknowledgments

👨‍💻 Author

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