A Swiss army knife for testing HTTP from the terminal
Hiya HN! Just released Artillery Probe - a Swiss army knife for testing HTTP from the CLI. Think mini-curl with better UX for common use-cases, plus a couple of extra features. Would love for you to try it and give some feedback! https://www.artillery.io/blog/swiss-army-knife-for-http-testing and: npm install artillery@latest What does it do? - First of all, it's a HTTP client! It does all the usual stuff you'd expect from a HTTP client... HTTP methods, request bodies, custom headers, forms, Basic Auth etc. - Got some JSON or XML back? It'll pretty-print it, and syntax…
In plain words
Artillery Probe is a command-line HTTP client designed for developers who need to test APIs and web services from the terminal. It handles standard HTTP operations like different request methods, custom headers, authentication, and form data. The tool pretty-prints and syntax-highlights JSON and XML responses, displays detailed request waterfalls showing DNS lookup, TCP connection, SSL handshake, and transfer times, and includes query capabilities for JSON responses. It offers a more user-friendly alternative to curl for common testing scenarios.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hiya HN! Just released Artillery Probe - a Swiss army knife for testing HTTP from the CLI. Think mini-curl with better UX for common use-cases, plus a couple of extra features. Would love for you to try it and give some feedback! https://www.artillery.io/blog/swiss-army-knife-for-http-testing and: npm install artillery@latest What does it do? - First of all, it's a HTTP client! It does all the usual stuff you'd expect from a HTTP client... HTTP methods, request bodies, custom headers, forms, Basic Auth etc. - Got some JSON or XML back? It'll pretty-print it, and syntax highlight it for you. - It'll show you request waterfalls like this one: (inspired by httpstat) DNS Lookup | TCP Connection | SSL Handshake | Time to First Byte | Content Transfer 56ms | 14ms | 19ms | 181ms | 88ms | | | | | | 56ms | | | | 70ms | | | 89ms | | 270ms | total:358ms - JSON responses can be queried and sliced and diced with JMESPath (same syntax as AWS CLI) - no need to reach for jq. XML & HTML may be queried with a jQuery-like syntax too. - You can set expectations on the response, e.g. have the CLI check that the response is a 200, or that a certain header is set, and exit with non-zero code if not. Super handy for quick acceptance testing. We've got lots of ideas for improvements, but would love to hear what you think!
More dev tools this month
the category →
Open-source GTM skills for technical founders
Dev tools · 29d ago · gtmcofounder.com
OpenTrailPaper is open-source bike computer firmware for the LilyGO T5S3 4.7" E-Paper PRO. It supports offline maps, GPX routes, FIT recording and Bluetooth sensors.
Dev tools · 1d ago · opentrailpaper.com
Launched alongside, May 2022
the whole month →
Peerlist▲1,052A professional network w/ robust work profiles at its core
Life & fun · 2022 · peerlist.io
- MA
Life & fun · 2022 · github.com
