API Routes Explorer

Discover → Analyze → Test → Response → Document API routes directly inside VS Code.

API Routes Explorer is a developer-focused VS Code extension that automatically discovers, analyzes, tests, and documents backend API routes directly from your editor. Stop context switching between code, terminal windows, Postman, and Swagger docs.

What It Does

Open Project ──▶ Discover Routes ──▶ Analyze Health ──▶ Test in HTTP Client ──▶ Inspect Response ──▶ Export OpenAPI

1. Discover: Scans your workspace using offline AST parsing and organizes every API endpoint into an interactive Activity Bar tree.
2. Analyze: Evaluates route health, finds duplicate endpoints, highlights shadowed paths, and inspects middleware/guards.
3. Test: Opens a native, secure HTTP Client pre-populated with method, base URL, path parameters, and headers.
4. Response: Measures millisecond timing, status codes, payload sizes, and inspects formatted response bodies and headers.
5. Document: Generates deterministic OpenAPI 3.0.3 specifications with single-click YAML or JSON export.

Screenshots

🌲 Discovered Routes in Activity Bar TreeView

Explore all backend API endpoints categorized by file with HTTP method icons, route paths, and direct source line navigation:

📊 Real-time Route Statistics & Breakdown

Instant route metrics showing breakdown across HTTP methods, duplicate collisions, and shared multi-method paths:

Features

🧭 1. Route Discovery & Navigation

• Offline AST Parsing: Fast, non-executing static analysis of routes without running user code.
• 1-Click Jump to Code: Click any route in the tree to jump directly to its controller definition line.
• Smart Grouping: Switch between Group by File, Group by Framework, Group by HTTP Method, or Group by Health.
• Instant Search & Filter: Real-time fuzzy filtering by route path, HTTP method, status, or handler name.
• Sub-Second Scalability: Discovers 4,700+ routes in under 100ms with debounced incremental file watchers.

🩺 2. Route Intelligence & Analysis

• Health Ratings: Automated categorization into Healthy, Warning, or Error.
• Conflict & Shadowing Detection: Flags parameterized routes that shadow static endpoints (e.g. /users/:id shadowing /users/me).
• Duplicate Prevention: Identifies duplicate HTTP method + normalized path collisions across different files.
• Middleware & Guard Extraction: Displays active middleware stacks, Fastify pre-handlers, and NestJS guards.
• VS Code Diagnostics: Integrated problems panel reporting for syntax and mounting errors.

⚡ 3. Native HTTP Client

• Seamless Route Integration: Click Test API on any discovered route to open the HTTP Client with all route context preserved.
• Route Context Banner: Displays the framework badge, route signature, and clickable source file link.
• Dynamic Path Parameters: Automatically detects {id} or {slug} and provides validated input fields.
• Request Configuration: Dedicated tabs for Params, Headers, Body, and cURL.
• Formatted Response Inspector: Color-coded status pills, millisecond duration, byte size, pretty-printed JSON, and header tables.
• Request Cancellation: Cancel in-flight requests safely with clean socket teardown.
• Reproducible cURL: Generates accurate, copyable cURL commands matching your active configuration.

📄 4. OpenAPI 3.0.3 Specification Generation

• Automated Spec Builder: Compiles an OpenAPI 3.0.3 specification from discovered routes without annotations.
• Operation-Level Preview: Click View OpenAPI to inspect a single route's YAML operation definition beside your code.
• Deterministic Export: Export full workspace specifications as standard JSON or YAML with zero machine path leaks.
• Path Parameter & Body Mapping: Automatically derives path parameter schemas and request body envelopes.

🎨 5. Developer UX & Theming

• Native VS Code Integration: Seamless styling under VS Code Dark, VS Code Light, and VS Code High Contrast.
• Full Keyboard Accessibility: Complete Tab navigation, Enter to activate, and Escape to dismiss.
• Action Triad: Clear, uncluttered route actions: [ Analyze ] [ Test API ] [ OpenAPI ].
• First-Run Experience: Lightweight, non-intrusive welcome prompt requiring no setup.

🛡️ 6. Privacy & Security First

• Zero Cloud Sync: Everything runs 100% locally on your machine.
• No Account Required: No login, no sign-up, no API key needed.
• No Telemetry: No tracking, phone-home beacons, or external analytics.
• No .env Scanning: Local environment variables and secrets are never scanned or indexed.
• Strict Content Security Policy: Nonce-based script execution with default-src 'none'.

Supported Frameworks

Installation

From VS Code Marketplace

1. Open Visual Studio Code.
2. Press Cmd+P (macOS) or Ctrl+P (Windows/Linux).
3. Type:

   ext install hussnain-143.api-routes-explorer
   

From VSIX Package

Download the latest api-routes-explorer-1.5.1.vsix from GitHub Releases and run:

code --install-extension api-routes-explorer-1.5.1.vsix --force

Quick Start (Under 2 Minutes)

1. Open a project  ──▶  2. Open Activity Bar  ──▶  3. Scan Routes  ──▶  4. Test Endpoint  ──▶  5. Export OpenAPI

1. Open Backend Project: Open any Express, Next.js, Fastify, or NestJS project in VS Code.
2. Open Extension: Click the API Routes Explorer icon in the Activity Bar.
3. Explore Endpoints: View your discovered routes grouped by file or framework.
4. Analyze Route: Click Analyze to check health, route diagnostics, and middleware.
5. Test in HTTP Client: Click Test API to launch the built-in HTTP Client. Fill dynamic parameters and click Send.
6. Inspect Response: Review the HTTP status, response headers, latency, and formatted JSON body.
7. View OpenAPI: Click OpenAPI to generate a YAML specification preview.

Configuration Settings

Customize API Routes Explorer in your VS Code settings.json:

{
  "apiRouteExplorer.defaultGrouping": "file",
  "apiRouteExplorer.baseUrl": "http://localhost:5000",
  "apiRouteExplorer.autoRefresh": true,
  "apiRouteExplorer.scan.exclude": ["**/custom-temp/**"],
  "apiRouteExplorer.httpClient.timeout": 10000,
  "apiRouteExplorer.openapi.title": "My API Specification",
  "apiRouteExplorer.openapi.version": "1.0.0"
}

Security & Privacy Policy

API Routes Explorer was built on a privacy-first foundation:

• No telemetry or data collection: Zero external network requests are made by the extension core.
• Local network execution: HTTP Client requests are dispatched strictly from your local Node.js environment to the target server you configure.
• No secret harvesting: Secret files (.env, .env.local, .pem) are intentionally ignored by the scanner.
• Zero machine path leakage: Exported OpenAPI specifications use workspace-relative paths to prevent leaking absolute machine directories.

Author & References

Developed and maintained by Hussnain Ahmed:

• GitHub: @hussnain-143
• Repository: hussnain-143/api-route-explorer
• Issues & Feedback: Report an Issue
• Discussions: Join GitHub Discussions

Contributing & Support

• Bug Reports & Feature Requests: GitHub Issues
• Contributing Guide: CONTRIBUTING.md
• Support & Help: SUPPORT.md
• Changelog: CHANGELOG.md

License

API Routes Explorer is open-source software licensed under the MIT License.
Copyright (c) 2026 Hussnain Ahmed and API Routes Explorer Contributors.