Rest API Inspector

Rest API Inspector — Professional API Debugging Tool for Developers =================================================================== Rest API Inspector is a powerful, lightweight Chrome extension built for frontend developers, full-stack engineers, QA testers, and anyone who needs to understand exactly what API calls their web application is making. Whether you are debugging a production issue, testing a new feature, auditing third-party integrations, or verifying that your app communicates correctly with a backend, Rest API Inspector gives you instant, clear visibility into every HTTP request — without ever leaving your browser tab. Unlike the built-in Network tab in Chrome DevTools, Rest API Inspector is designed to be fast to open, easy to navigate, and focused purely on REST API traffic. It sits quietly in your toolbar, capturing requests in the background the moment you load a page. One click on any request reveals its complete profile: method, status, duration, all request and response headers, request body, and response body — with JSON automatically pretty-printed and syntax-highlighted. Built on Chrome Manifest V3, the extension uses the absolute minimum permissions required — just tabs and activeTab. Everything is stored in memory only, never written to disk, and never sent anywhere. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CORE FEATURES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LIVE REQUEST CAPTURE The moment you open a web page, the extension begins capturing every outgoing API call. No configuration, no code changes. The extension patches both XMLHttpRequest and fetch() at the MAIN world level, which means it intercepts requests from the page's own code, third-party libraries, embedded widgets, and analytics scripts — anything running in that tab. IN-PROGRESS INDICATORS Requests appear instantly with a live spinner while in flight. The row updates automatically when the response arrives, showing the final status code and exact duration. This live view is useful for tracking slow requests, watching long-polling calls, or understanding the order in which parallel requests resolve. RESPONSE TIME TRACKING Every request is timed from the moment it is sent to the moment the full response is received, colour-coded for instant scanning: • Green — under 300ms (fast) • Yellow — 300ms to 1s (acceptable) • Red — over 1s (slow — investigate) HTTP METHOD BADGES Every request is labelled with its HTTP method in a colour-coded badge: • GET — green • POST — blue • PUT — yellow • PATCH — purple • DELETE — red • HEAD — cyan STATUS CODE COLOUR CODING • 2xx Success — green • 3xx Redirect — cyan • 4xx Client Error — yellow • 5xx Server Error — red ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FILTERING & SEARCH ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ METHOD FILTER BUTTONS One-click buttons to show only GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE requests. The active filter is highlighted. Switching is instant. LIVE TEXT SEARCH The search bar filters the request list as you type — by any part of the URL, by method name, or by status code. The text search and method filter work simultaneously. For example: filter to POST, then search for "auth" to find your authentication endpoint immediately. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FIVE-TAB DETAIL PANEL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Click any request to open its complete detail view. Five tabs cover every dimension of the exchange: OVERVIEW TAB • HTTP method, status code and text, duration, request type • Exact timestamp, source page URL • Full URL in a copyable code block REQUEST HEADERS TAB All headers sent with the request, sorted alphabetically in a clean two-column table. Includes Content-Type, Authorization, custom headers — everything. REQUEST BODY TAB The payload sent with the request, rendered intelligently: • JSON — parsed, pretty-printed, syntax-highlighted • FormData — decoded as readable key-value pairs, File entries show filename and size • URL-encoded — displayed as readable text • Binary / Blob — labelled with MIME type and byte count • Empty body — clearly labelled rather than left blank RESPONSE HEADERS TAB All headers returned by the server, sorted alphabetically. Check CORS headers, Cache-Control, Set-Cookie, rate limit headers, and any custom API response headers. RESPONSE BODY TAB The full response from the server: • Valid JSON — automatically parsed, pretty-printed and syntax-highlighted • Other text (HTML, XML, plain text) — shown verbatim • Large responses over 500KB — truncated with a note showing the original size All tabs include a hover-to-reveal Copy button so you can copy any content with a single click. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EXPORT & SHARING ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ EXPORT ALL AS HAR Saves all visible requests as a standard HAR (HTTP Archive) 1.2 file. Compatible with: • Chrome DevTools (Network tab → Import HAR) • Postman (generate a collection from real traffic) • Charles Proxy, Fiddler, WebPageTest • Any HAR viewer or analysis tool DOWNLOAD SINGLE REQUEST Saves the selected request as a self-contained JSON file including the method, URL, status, duration, all headers, request body, and response body. The filename is auto-generated from the method and URL path. COPY AS CURL Copies a complete, ready-to-run curl command to your clipboard: curl -X POST 'https://api.example.com/users' \ -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \ -H 'Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGc...' \ -d '{"name":"Alice","email":"alice@example.com"}' Paste directly into a terminal to reproduce any request — useful for isolating API behaviour or sharing a reproducible call with a backend engineer. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RECORDING CONTROLS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PAUSE & R…