What's Hurl?

Hurl is a command line tool that runs HTTP requests defined in a simple plain text format.

It can perform requests, capture values and evaluate queries on headers and body response. Hurl is very versatile: it can be used for both fetching data and testing HTTP sessions.

# Get home:
GET https://example.org

HTTP/1.1 200
[Captures]
csrf_token: xpath "string(//meta[@name='_csrf_token']/@content)"

# Do login!
POST https://example.org/login?user=toto&password=1234
X-CSRF-TOKEN: {{csrf_token}}

HTTP/1.1 302

Chaining multiple requests is easy:

GET https://example.org/api/health
GET https://example.org/api/step1
GET https://example.org/api/step2
GET https://example.org/api/step3

Also an HTTP Test Tool

Hurl can run HTTP requests but can also be used to test HTTP responses. Different types of queries and predicates are supported, from XPath and JSONPath on body response, to assert on status code and response headers.

It is well adapted for REST / JSON apis

POST https://example.org/api/tests
{
    "id": "4568",
    "evaluate": true
}

HTTP/1.1 200
[Asserts]
header "X-Frame-Options" == "SAMEORIGIN"
jsonpath "$.status" == "RUNNING"    # Check the status code
jsonpath "$.tests" count == 25      # Check the number of items
jsonpath "$.id" matches /\d{4}/     # Check the format of the id

HTML content

GET https://example.org

HTTP/1.1 200
[Asserts]
xpath "normalize-space(//head/title)" == "Hello world!"

and even SOAP apis

POST https://example.org/InStock
Content-Type: application/soap+xml; charset=utf-8
SOAPAction: "http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:m="https://example.org">
  <soap:Header></soap:Header>
  <soap:Body>
    <m:GetStockPrice>
      <m:StockName>GOOG</m:StockName>
    </m:GetStockPrice>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

HTTP/1.1 200

Hurl can also be used to test HTTP endpoints performances:

GET https://example.org/api/v1/pets

HTTP/1.0 200
[Asserts]
duration < 1000  # Duration in ms

And responses bytes content

GET https://example.org/data.tar.gz

HTTP/1.0 200
[Asserts]
sha256 == hex,039058c6f2c0cb492c533b0a4d14ef77cc0f78abccced5287d84a1a2011cfb81;

Why Hurl?

Text Format: for both devops and developers
Fast CLI: a command line for local dev and continuous integration
Single Binary: easy to install, with no runtime required

Powered by curl

Hurl is a lightweight binary written in Rust. Under the hood, Hurl HTTP engine is powered by libcurl, one of the most powerful and reliable file transfer library. With its text file format, Hurl adds syntactic sugar to run and tests HTTP requests, but it's still the curl that we love.

Feedbacks

Feedback, suggestion, bugs or improvements are welcome!

POST https://hurl.dev/api/feedback
{
  "name": "John Doe",
  "feedback": "Hurl is awesome !"
}
HTTP/1.1 200

Resources

Samples
Man Page
- Name
- Synopsis
- Description
- Hurl File Format
  - Capturing values
  - Asserts
- Options
- Environment
- Exit Codes
- WWW
- See Also
Installation
- Binaries Installation
  - Linux
  - macOS
  - Windows
  - Cargo
  - Docker
  - npm
- Building From Sources
  - Build on Linux, macOS
  - Build on Windows

Samples

To run a sample, edit a file with the sample content, and run Hurl:

$ vi sample.hurl

GET https://example.org

$ hurl sample.hurl

By default, Hurl behaves like curl and outputs the last HTTP response's entry. To have a test oriented output, you can use --test option:

$ hurl --test sample.hurl

You can check Hurl tests suite for more samples.

Getting Data

A simple GET:

GET https://example.org

Option	Description
`--cacert`	Tells curl to use the specified certificate file to verify the peer. The file may contain multiple CA certificates. The certificate(s) must be in PEM format. Normally curl is built to use a default file for this, so this option is typically used to alter that default file.
`--color`	Colorize Output
`--compressed`	Request a compressed response using one of the algorithms br, gzip, deflate and automatically decompress the content.
`--connect-timeout <seconds>`	Maximum time in seconds that you allow Hurl's connection to take. See also -m, --max-time option.
`-b, --cookie <file>`	Read cookies from file (using the Netscape cookie file format). Combined with -c, --cookie-jar, you can simulate a cookie storage between successive Hurl runs.
`-c, --cookie-jar <file>`	Write cookies to FILE after running the session (only for one session). The file will be written using the Netscape cookie file format. Combined with -b, --cookie, you can simulate a cookie storage between successive Hurl runs.
`--fail-at-end`	Continue executing requests to the end of the Hurl file even when an assert error occurs. By default, Hurl exits after an assert error in the HTTP response. Note that this option does not affect the behavior with multiple input Hurl files. All the input files are executed independently. The result of one file does not affect the execution of the other Hurl files.
`--file-root <dir>`	Set root filesystem to import files in Hurl. This is used for both files in multipart form data and request body. When this is not explicitly defined, the files are relative to the current directory in which Hurl is running.
`-L, --location`	Follow redirect. You can limit the amount of redirects to follow by using the --max-redirs option.
`--glob <glob>`	Specify input files that match the given glob pattern. Multiple glob flags may be used. This flag supports common Unix glob patterns like *, ? and []. However, to avoid your shell accidentally expanding glob patterns before Hurl handles them, you must use single quotes or double quotes around each pattern.
`-i, --include`	Include the HTTP headers in the output (last entry).
`--ignore-asserts`	Ignore all asserts defined in the Hurl file.
`-k, --insecure`	This option explicitly allows Hurl to perform "insecure" SSL connections and transfers.
`--interactive`	Stop between requests. This is similar to a break point, You can then continue (Press C) or quit (Press Q).
`--json`	Output each hurl file result to JSON. The format is very closed to HAR format.
`--max-redirs <num>`	Set maximum number of redirection-followings allowed By default, the limit is set to 50 redirections. Set this option to -1 to make it unlimited.
`-m, --max-time <seconds>`	Maximum time in seconds that you allow a request/response to take. This is the standard timeout. See also --connect-timeout option.
`--no-color`	Do not colorize Output
`--no-output`	Suppress output. By default, Hurl outputs the body of the last response.
`--noproxy <no-proxy-list>`	Comma-separated list of hosts which do not use a proxy. Override value from Environment variable no_proxy.
`-o, --output <file>`	Write output to instead of stdout.
`--progress`	Print filename and status for each test (on stderr)
`-x, --proxy [protocol://]host[:port]`	Use the specified proxy.
`--report-junit <file>`	Generate JUNIT . If the report already exists, it will be updated with the new test results.
`--report-html <dir>`	Generate HTML report in dir. If the HTML report already exists, it will be updated with the new test results.
`--summary`	Print test metrics at the end of the run (on stderr)
`--test`	Activate test mode; equals --no-output --progress --summary
`--to-entry <entry-number>`	Execute Hurl file to ENTRY_NUMBER (starting at 1). Ignore the remaining of the file. It is useful for debugging a session.
`-u, --user <user:password>`	Add basic Authentication header to each request.
`-A, --user-agent <name>`	Specify the User-Agent string to send to the HTTP server.
`--variable <name=value>`	Define variable (name/value) to be used in Hurl templates.
`--variables-file <file>`	Set properties file in which your define your variables. Each variable is defined as name=value exactly as with --variable option. Note that defining a variable twice produces an error.
`-v, --verbose`	Turn on verbose output on standard error stream Useful for debugging. A line starting with '>' means data sent by Hurl. A line staring with '<' means data received by Hurl. A line starting with '*' means additional info provided by Hurl. If you only want HTTP headers in the output, -i, --include might be the option you're looking for.
`-h, --help`	Usage help. This lists all current command line options with a short description.
`-V, --version`	Prints version information

Variable	Description
`http_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]`	Sets the proxy server to use for HTTP.
`https_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]`	Sets the proxy server to use for HTTPS.
`all_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]`	Sets the proxy server to use if no protocol-specific proxy is set.
`no_proxy <comma-separated list of hosts>`	list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy.
`HURL_name value`	Define variable (name/value) to be used in Hurl templates. This is similar than --variable and --variables-file options.

Value	Description
`1`	Failed to parse command-line options.
`2`	Input File Parsing Error.
`3`	Runtime error (such as failure to connect to host).
`4`	Assert Error.

What's Hurl?

Also an HTTP Test Tool

Why Hurl?

Powered by curl

Feedbacks

Resources

Table of Contents

Samples

Getting Data

HTTP Headers

Query Params

Basic Authentification

Sending Data

Sending HTML Form Datas

Sending Multipart Form Datas

Posting a JSON Body

Templating a JSON / XML Body

Testing Response

Testing Response Headers

Testing REST Apis

Testing HTML Response

Testing Set-Cookie Attributes

Testing Bytes Content

Others

Testing Endpoint Performance

Using SOAP Apis

Capturing and Using a CSRF Token

Checking Byte Order Mark (BOM) in Response Body

Man Page

Name

Synopsis

Description

Hurl File Format

Capturing values

Asserts

Options

Environment

Exit Codes

WWW

See Also

Installation

Binaries Installation

Linux

Debian / Ubuntu

Arch Linux / Manjaro

NixOS / Nix

macOS

Windows

Zip File

Installer

Chocolatey

Scoop

Windows Package Manager

Cargo

Docker

npm

Building From Sources

Build on Linux, macOS

Debian based distributions

Red Hat based distributions

Arch based distributions

macOS

Build on Windows

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