A very fast, powerful, extensible and asynchronous Neovim HTTP client written in Lua.
rest.nvim by default makes use of its own curl wrapper made in pure Lua and a tree-sitter
parser to parse http files. So what you can run get exact and detailed result what you see from
your editor!
In addition to this, you can also write integrations with external HTTP clients, such as the postman CLI.
Important
If you are facing issues, please report them so we can work in a fix together :)
Features
- Easy to use
- Friendly, organized and featureful request results window
- Fast runtime with statistics about your request
- Set custom pre-request and post-request hooks to dynamically interact with the data
- Easily set environment variables based on the response to re-use the data later
- Tree-sitter based parsing and syntax highlighting for speed and perfect accuracy
- Format response body with native
gqcommand - Possibility of using dynamic/environment variables and Lua scripting in HTTP files
- Save received cookies and load them automatically
Install
Dependencies
- Neovim >= 0.10.1
curl- tree-sitter-http (if you use
lazy.nvim)
rocks.nvim (recommended)
lazy.nvim
{
"rest-nvim/rest.nvim",
dependencies = {
"nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter",
opts = function (_, opts)
opts.ensure_installed = opts.ensure_installed or {}
table.insert(opts.ensure_installed, "http")
end,
}
}Important
You need lazy.nvim higher than v11 to install rockspec dependencies
Setup
No .setup() call is needed!
Just set your options via vim.g.rest_nvim. It is fully documented and typed internally so you get
a good experience during autocompletion :)
---@type rest.Opts vim.g.rest_nvim = { -- ... }
Note
You can also check out :h rest-nvim.config for documentation.
Default configuration
---rest.nvim default configuration ---@class rest.Config local default_config = { ---@type table<string, fun():string> Table of custom dynamic variables custom_dynamic_variables = {}, ---@class rest.Config.Request request = { ---@type boolean Skip SSL verification, useful for unknown certificates skip_ssl_verification = false, ---Default request hooks ---@class rest.Config.Request.Hooks hooks = { ---@type boolean Encode URL before making request encode_url = true, ---@type string Set `User-Agent` header when it is empty user_agent = "rest.nvim v" .. require("rest-nvim.api").VERSION, ---@type boolean Set `Content-Type` header when it is empty and body is provided set_content_type = true, }, }, ---@class rest.Config.Response response = { ---Default response hooks ---@class rest.Config.Response.Hooks hooks = { ---@type boolean Decode the request URL segments on response UI to improve readability decode_url = true, ---@type boolean Format the response body using `gq` command format = true, }, }, ---@class rest.Config.Clients clients = { ---@class rest.Config.Clients.Curl curl = { ---Statistics to be shown, takes cURL's `--write-out` flag variables ---See `man curl` for `--write-out` flag ---@type RestStatisticsStyle[] statistics = { { id = "time_total", winbar = "take", title = "Time taken" }, { id = "size_download", winbar = "size", title = "Download size" }, }, ---Curl-secific request/response hooks ---@class rest.Config.Clients.Curl.Opts opts = { ---@type boolean Add `--compressed` argument when `Accept-Encoding` header includes ---`gzip` set_compressed = false, ---@type table<string, Certificate> Table containing certificates for each domains certificates = {}, }, }, }, ---@class rest.Config.Cookies cookies = { ---@type boolean Whether enable cookies support or not enable = true, ---@type string Cookies file path path = vim.fs.joinpath(vim.fn.stdpath("data") --[[@as string]], "rest-nvim.cookies"), }, ---@class rest.Config.Env env = { ---@type boolean enable = true, ---@type string pattern = ".*%.env.*", ---@type fun():string[] find = function() local config = require("rest-nvim.config") return vim.fs.find(function(name, _) return name:match(config.env.pattern) end, { path = vim.fn.getcwd(), type = "file", limit = math.huge, }) end, }, ---@class rest.Config.UI ui = { ---@type boolean Whether to set winbar to result panes winbar = true, ---@class rest.Config.UI.Keybinds keybinds = { ---@type string Mapping for cycle to previous result pane prev = "H", ---@type string Mapping for cycle to next result pane next = "L", }, }, ---@class rest.Config.Highlight highlight = { ---@type boolean Whether current request highlighting is enabled or not enable = true, ---@type number Duration time of the request highlighting in milliseconds timeout = 750, }, ---@see vim.log.levels ---@type integer log level _log_level = vim.log.levels.WARN, }
Usage
Create a new http file or open an existing one and run the :Rest run {name} command, or
just place the cursor over the request and simply run :Rest run.
HTTP file syntax
Method Request-URI HTTP-Version
Header-field: Header-value
Request-Body
Keybindings
By default rest.nvim does not have any key mappings except the result buffers so you will not have
conflicts with any of your existing ones.
Commands
| User Command | Behavior |
|---|---|
:Rest open |
Open result pane |
:Rest run |
Run request under the cursor |
:Rest run {name} |
Run request with name {name} |
:Rest last |
Run last request |
:Rest logs |
Edit logs file |
:Rest cookies |
Edit cookies file |
:Rest env show |
Show dotenv file registered to current .http file |
:Rest env select |
Select & register .env file with vim.ui.select() |
:Rest env set {path} |
Register .env file to current .http file |
[!INFO] All
:Restsubcommands opening new window supportcommand-modifiers(:h command-modifiers.) For example, you can run:hor Rest opento open result pane in horizontal split.
See :h rest-nvim.commands for more info
Lua scripting
http://localhost:8000 # @lang=lua > {% local json = vim.json.decode(response.body) json.data = "overwritten" response.body = vim.json.encode(json) %}
Put # @lang=lua comment just above any script elements.
Scripts without @lang will be parsed as javascript code to match with http spec.
Extensions
Telescope Extension
rest.nvim provides a [telescope.nvim] extension to select the environment variables file,
you can load and use it with the following snippet:
-- first load extension require("telescope").load_extension("rest") -- then use it, you can also use the `:Telescope rest select_env` command require("telescope").extensions.rest.select_env()
Here is a preview of the extension working :)
Mappings
- Enter: Select Env file
- Ctrl + O: Edit Env file
Config
config.env.pattern: For env file pattern (lua-pattern)
Lualine Component
We also have lualine component to get what env file you select!
And don't worry, it will only show up under HTTP files.
-- Just add a component in your lualine config { sections = { lualine_x = { "rest" } } } -- To use a custom icon and color { sections = { lualine_x = { { "rest", icon = "", fg = "#428890" } } } }
Here is a preview of the component working :)
Contribute
- Fork it (https://github.com/rest-nvim/rest.nvim/fork)
- Create your feature branch (
git checkout -b my-new-feature) - Commit your changes (
git commit -am 'feat: add some feature') - Push to the branch (
git push -u origin my-new-feature) - Create a new Pull Request
Important
rest.nvim uses semantic commits that adhere to semantic versioning and these help with automatic releases, please use this type of convention when submitting changes to the project.
Tests can be ran via make test. You must have luarocks installed to install dependencies. The
test runner through make test will automatically install all required dependencies.
Related software
License
rest.nvim is GPLv3 Licensed.

