quiver

A minimal, keyboard-driven HTTP client. Like Postman, minus the mouse (and 400 MB).

Built on Deno: a single process serves a tiny web UI and opens it in a native window (webview). No build step, no bundler, no framework.

Run

deno task start     # native desktop window
deno task browser   # serve + open in your default browser
deno task serve     # serve only, prints the URL

First start downloads the webview native library (one time).

Keys

Modal, vim-style. ? inside the app shows the full cheatsheet.

h l	move between panes (sidebar → request → response)
j k gg G	move / scroll
i / ⏎	edit field · cycle choice · toggle · open item
esc	back to normal mode
s or ctrl+⏎	send (⏎ in the URL bar also sends)
1–5 [ ]	request tabs: params · headers · body · auth · options
a dd x	add / delete / disable row (or request, in sidebar)
tab	sidebar: requests ⇄ history · response: body ⇄ headers
/	filter sidebar · search response body (n/N to step)
e	cycle environment
y	yank response body / url
:	command line

Commands: :w [name] save · :new [name] · :env [name] · :envs edit environments · :settings edit defaults · :collection <name> · :ren <name> · :clear-history · :clear-cookies · :q quit.

Variables & environments

{{name}} anywhere in the URL, params, headers, body, or auth fields is resolved from the active environment, plus any @name = value file variables declared at the top of the collection's .http file (file variables shadow environment variables, as in REST Client). Edit environments with :envs (raw JSON, ctrl+s to save):

{
  "active": "local",
  "environments": [
    {
      "name": "local",
      "vars": { "baseUrl": "http://localhost:3000", "token": "dev" }
    },
    { "name": "staging", "vars": { "baseUrl": "https://staging.example.com" } }
  ]
}

Local-dev configurables

• Auth helpers — bearer token, basic auth, API key (header or query) on the auth tab.
• Per-request options — timeout, follow-redirects, cookie jar on the options tab; defaults for new requests via :settings.
• Cookie jar — Set-Cookie responses are stored per host and replayed automatically; :clear-cookies resets.
• Self-signed TLS — the start/browser/serve tasks run with --unsafely-ignore-certificate-errors=localhost,127.0.0.1, so https://localhost with a self-signed cert just works. Add hosts to that flag in deno.json if you need others.
• Proxy — Deno's fetch honors HTTP_PROXY / HTTPS_PROXY / NO_PROXY; set them before launching.
• History — every send is logged (newest first in the history view, ⏎ to replay/edit).

Data

Everything is plain text under ~/.quiver (override with QUIVER_DIR or --dir <path> — handy for a per-project, git-tracked collection):

<name>.http         one file per collection — saved requests
environments.json   environments + active
settings.json       defaults for new requests
cookies.json        cookie jar
history.jsonl       request log (append-only)

Collections use the plain-text .http format (restclient.el / VS Code REST Client dialect), so the same files work in your editor:

# comments and @vars above the first request are kept verbatim
@base = https://api.example.com

### create user
POST {{base}}/users
Content-Type: application/json

{"name": "ada"}

Supported per-request directives: # @name x, # @timeout 30s|500ms, # @no-redirect, # @no-cookie-jar. Quiver-specific state rides in comments other clients ignore: # @auth bearer <token> (also basic <user> <pass>, apikey header|query <key> <value>) for the auth tab, and commented-out # ?key=value / # Header: value lines for disabled rows. Free-form comments inside a request block are not preserved when quiver rewrites the file. A legacy collections.json is converted to .http files on first start (the original is kept as collections.json.bak).

Layout

main.ts          entry: flags, webview window (server runs in a worker) or browser mode
src/server.ts    localhost API + static UI
src/http.ts      request engine: interpolation, auth, cookies, send
src/httpfile.ts  .http format: parse + serialize
src/storage.ts   plain-file persistence
src/cookies.ts   minimal cookie jar
ui/              index.html + app.js + style.css — vanilla, no build step