REST API Client – Local Collections, No Login

A local-first REST and GraphQL client for VS Code, VSCodium, Cursor and Windsurf. No account, no sign-in, no cloud, no telemetry. Collections and environments are plain, readable JSON files in your repo, so you can review them in pull requests and share them through git.

Why

• Never asks you to log in. The free core stays free: unlimited collections, requests, environments and history.
• Your data is files you own. Requests live in api-collections/collections/*.json and environments in api-collections/environments/*.json. Writes are atomic, and the JSON is formatted for clean diffs.
• Bring everything with you in one click. Import Thunder Client (exported files or its on-disk storage, no Thunder account needed), Postman v2.1 collections and environments, OpenAPI 3 / Swagger 2 (JSON or YAML) and cURL.

Features (free)

• Request builder
  • methods: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD and OPTIONS;
  • query params and headers, each with an on/off toggle;
  • paste a cURL command straight into the URL bar.
• Body: JSON (with a Format button), text, XML, form URL-encoded, multipart with file upload, GraphQL (query + variables) and binary file.
• Auth:
  • Bearer, Basic, API key (in a header or the query string);
  • OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials, with a cached token;
  • collection-level auth that requests inherit.
• Response viewer
  • status, time and size;
  • pretty JSON with highlighting, using a lossless formatter so big integers are never rounded;
  • raw view, headers, images inline;
  • "Open in editor" for large bodies.
  • Responses are never cached.
• Environments and variables
  • {{baseUrl}}-style variables;
  • a Globals environment applied everywhere;
  • dynamic values {{$guid}}, {{$timestamp}}, {{$randomInt 1 100}} and {{$processEnv NAME}};
  • switch environments from the status bar.
• Secrets stay out of git. Put them in environments/<name>.local.json, which is gitignored automatically and merged over <name>.json.
• Tests without code. Assert on status, JSON path, header, body, time, size or content type with =, ≠, contains, <, >, exists, regex, type and count.
• Request chaining. Save a JSON path or header from a response into a variable, for example access_token → {{token}}.
• History of every send. It is kept in VS Code storage, never in your repo.
• Code export: cURL, JavaScript fetch, Python requests and .http. You can also export a whole collection as a .http file for the JetBrains HTTP Client or the REST Client extension.
• Collection runner in the editor (the first 10 requests of each run in Free).

Pro (licence key, works offline)

$29 one-time per developer, or $19 a year. Everything above stays free. Pro adds:

• an unlimited collection runner, plus JUnit XML and JSON report export;
• the rcl CLI for CI: a single dependency-free file (dist/cli.js in the extension folder; copy it into your repo as rcl.js). Run node rcl.js run api-collections --env ci --reporter junit --out report.xml, with RCL_LICENSE_KEY as a CI secret. It exits with code 1 on failures;
• a team folder: point restClientLocal.teamFolder at a shared git repo, and its collections appear in the sidebar with Pull and Commit & Push commands;
• OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code + PKCE: browser sign-in to your API, with redirect http://127.0.0.1:53682/callback.

Pro features are marked with a small PRO badge where you would use them. There are no pop-up nags. Get a key at https://puzaricloud.in/apps/rest-client/ and run REST API Client: Enter Pro License Key.

Getting started

1. Open the REST API Client icon in the activity bar.
2. Click New Request, or Import to bring in your Thunder Client / Postman / OpenAPI / cURL files. To recover Thunder Client data without signing in, run REST API Client: Import All From Thunder Client Storage.
3. Press Send (Ctrl/Cmd+Enter) and Save (Ctrl/Cmd+S).
4. Commit the api-collections/ folder.

File format

{
  "format": "rest-client-local/collection", "version": 1, "name": "Shop API",
  "baseUrl": "{{baseUrl}}", "auth": { "type": "bearer", "token": "{{token}}" },
  "folders": [{ "id": "f1", "name": "Orders" }],
  "requests": [{ "id": "r1", "name": "List orders", "folder": "f1", "method": "GET", "url": "/orders",
    "params": [], "headers": [], "auth": { "type": "inherit" }, "body": { "type": "none" },
    "tests": [{ "source": "status", "op": "eq", "value": "200" }] }]
}

Settings

• restClientLocal.folder: storage folder. Default: api-collections.
• restClientLocal.timeoutMs: request timeout.
• restClientLocal.followRedirects: follow redirects.
• restClientLocal.rejectUnauthorized: reject invalid TLS certificates. Turn it off for self-signed dev certificates.
• restClientLocal.historyLimit: how many history entries to keep.
• restClientLocal.teamFolder: the shared team repo (Pro).

Privacy

The extension sends requests only to the URLs you enter. It collects no telemetry or analytics and makes no licence phone-home. See PRIVACY.md.

Support

support@puzaricloud.in · PuzariCloud