API Circle Studio

Git-backed API workspace with mocks and plans — natively in VS Code.

Edit your API Circle workspace inside VS Code. The same .apicircle/ workspace directory you commit to Git, edit in the API Circle Desktop App, or open in the API Circle Web App — one repo, three surfaces, byte-identical commits.

Why

VS Code is where the same engineers who use API Circle already live with Git. Editing your API workspace inline removes the context switch from editor → API client → back. Because the canonical workspace lives in your repo's .apicircle/ folder, VS Code's native Git extension tracks every change — no separate sync, no separate auth, no separate review surface.

Features

Workspace & navigation

• Activity Bar icon opens the API Circle sidebar with 8 views: Workspace, Editor, Environment, Execution, Mock, History, Snapshots, and Link Workspaces.
• Workspace discovery auto-detects .apicircle/registry.json in your open folders and Git-backed .apicircle/ directories.
• Workspace switcher — switch between discovered workspaces via the sidebar or API Circle: Switch Workspace.
• apicircle: virtual filesystem — requests, environments, plans, mocks, folders, and responses project as YAML documents in real VS Code text editors. Human-readable tab titles, folder paths in tooltips, identity preserved across renames and moves.

Request authoring & execution

• Request templates — six starter shapes via API Circle: New Request from Template… (Simple GET, JSON POST, Bearer-protected GET, Paginated GET, GraphQL query, REST CRUD scaffold).
• CodeLens helpers — ▶ Send, ✚ Add section…, ⤵ New from template… above each request YAML. In-flight requests swap to ⏳ Sending… · ✖ Cancel.
• All 17 auth types — none, bearer, basic, api-key, digest, NTLM, Hawk, AWS Signature v4, JWT bearer, and all OAuth 2.0 grants (Authorization Code, PKCE, Client Credentials, Password, Implicit, Device Code, private_key_jwt, token refresh).
• Folder-wise auth — set auth on a folder; child requests inherit via ◆ Inherits from <Folder> CodeLens.
• URL-as-source-of-truth — query parameters and path placeholders sync from the URL into structured sections on save.
• Response viewer as a virtual .run.yaml opened side-by-side — appears instantly on ▶ Send, resolves in place.
• Cancel in-flight requests via status bar, Esc, or the ✖ Cancel CodeLens.
• Pre-send diagnostics surfacing in the Problems panel.
• Execution plans — chain requests and run them end-to-end. The plan YAML carries ▶ Run with assertions / ▶ Run (two modes, matching Desktop / Web / CLI; a running plan swaps to ⏳ Running… · ✖ Cancel), ◆ Plan environments…, and ✚ Add step… (a multi-select picker that hides already-added requests and offers "Select all"). Each step row is annotated with a # <name> · <METHOD> · <folder> comment; per-step actions — Open / Enable-Disable / Change / Remove — are on the Execution sidebar (single-click opens the request, inline buttons + right-click menu). A plan run opened from History expands each step with full request + assertion detail. Plan definitions are shared via Git.

Mock servers

• Mock endpoint authoring in YAML — *.endpoint.yaml with field-level ◆ CodeLens editors on method, status, headers, body type, response rules, and multipliers.
• Validation rules — 🛡 Add validation rule with kind-aware pickers for headers, query params, cookies, and path params.
• Request schema editing on the Studio surfaces: VS Code YAML and the Web/Desktop editor.
• In-process mock server lifecycle — start, stop, and manage mocks from the sidebar.

MCP status

MCP is deprecated in API Circle Studio. Studio no longer ships, publishes, configures, or documents an active MCP server or MCP CLI. Existing .apicircle workspaces remain compatible; open the same repo in API Circle Lens and use apicircle-lens mcp for supported AI-client workflows.

Secret vault

• Passphrase-protected AES-GCM encrypted secret storage.
• Auto-lock by inactivity, clipboard auto-clear.
• Encrypted environment variable reveal via apicircle.openVaultEntry.

Link Workspaces

• Publish releases — tag, deprecate, and withdraw versions via releases.yaml CodeLens.
• Consume linked workspaces — link private repos or marketplace results, pin versions, manage scopes and required secrets.
• Three-way update review — preview incoming changes, accept source or keep yours per-field.

The three-surface principle

API Circle Studio's Web App, Desktop App, and VS Code extension are peer clients of the same canonical format:

<your-repo>/.apicircle/registry.json                     # workspace index
<your-repo>/.apicircle/workspace-<id>/workspace.json      # per-workspace doc

Edit on any surface → commit → push → pull elsewhere → continue. No translation, no dialect, no per-surface fork. Device-local data (history, secrets, sessions) stays per-machine in each surface's managed storage.

Installation

Install from the Visual Studio Marketplace or the Open VSX Registry:

Extensions view → search API Circle Studio → Install

Or build the .vsix locally:

1. Clone the repo.
2. pnpm install && pnpm --filter apicircle-vscode build
3. cd apps/vscode && pnpm exec vsce package --no-dependencies
4. Install via Extensions: Install from VSIX… in the command palette.

License

See repo-root LICENSE.