InspectorAPI

A cross-platform desktop HTTP client built with Avalonia UI. Organise requests into collections, send them, inspect responses, and save everything locally — no account required.

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Features

• Tabbed requests — open multiple requests side by side, duplicate tabs, quick-save
• Collections & folders — organise saved requests, rename, delete, import/export
• Query params ↔ URL sync — edit either the URL bar or the params panel; both stay in sync
• Request headers — autocomplete on common HTTP header names, pre-populated defaults
• Response viewer — formatted JSON, raw view, response headers, response time & size
• Import / Export — native JSON format and Postman v2.1 collections
• Light & dark themes — follows the system preference via Avalonia FluentTheme

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Dependencies

Runtime

Dependency	Version	Purpose
.NET	10.0	Runtime and SDK
Avalonia	11.2.3	Cross-platform UI framework
Avalonia.Themes.Fluent	11.2.3	Fluent design theme (light & dark)
Avalonia.Fonts.Inter	11.2.3	Inter font family
CommunityToolkit.Mvvm	8.3.2	MVVM source generators (ObservableProperty, RelayCommand, …)

NuGet packages are restored automatically on build — no manual installation is needed beyond the .NET SDK.

Platform requirements

Platform	Notes
Windows 10 / 11	Native Win32 backend
macOS 12+	Native AppKit backend
Linux	X11 or Wayland; requires a working desktop environment

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Building from the command line

1 — Install the .NET 10 SDK

Download and install the SDK for your platform from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet/10.0.

Verify the installation:

dotnet --version
# should print 10.x.x

2 — Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/jsiulian/InspectorAPI.git
cd InspectorAPI

3 — Restore NuGet packages

dotnet restore

4 — Run in development mode

dotnet run --project InspectorAPI.Desktop

This builds in Debug configuration (includes the Avalonia visual debugger overlay on F12).

5 — Build a release binary

dotnet build -c Release

6 — Publish a self-contained executable

Replace <RID> with the runtime identifier for your target platform:

Platform	RID
Windows x64	win-x64
Windows ARM64	win-arm64
macOS Apple Silicon	osx-arm64
macOS Intel	osx-x64
Linux x64	linux-x64
Linux ARM64	linux-arm64

dotnet publish InspectorAPI.Desktop -c Release -r <RID> --self-contained true

The output lands in:

InspectorAPI.Desktop/bin/Release/net10.0/<RID>/publish/

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Project structure

InspectorAPI/
├── InspectorAPI.sln
├── InspectorAPI.Core/          # Platform-independent logic
│   ├── Models/                 # Data models (Collection, SavedRequest, …)
│   ├── Services/               # HTTP client, collection persistence, Postman converter
│   └── ViewModels/             # MVVM view models (MainViewModel, RequestTabViewModel, …)
└── InspectorAPI.Desktop/       # Avalonia desktop application
    ├── Assets/                 # Application icon
    ├── Converters/             # Value converters (method badge colours, …)
    └── Views/
        ├── MainWindow.axaml    # Single-window UI — layout, styles, theme resources
        └── MainWindow.axaml.cs # Code-behind (file picker, keyboard shortcuts, focus)

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Data storage

Collections are saved as JSON files in the platform application-data directory:

Platform	Path
Windows	%APPDATA%\InspectorAPI\collections\
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/InspectorAPI/collections/
Linux	~/.config/InspectorAPI/collections/ (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/InspectorAPI/collections/)