Lightweight API Client

A browser-based API testing tool inspired by Postman, built as a lightweight, fast alternative for developers who want to test HTTP APIs without installing heavy desktop software.

🔗 Live Demo: https://api-client-navy.vercel.app/

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Features

• Send HTTP requests: GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE
• JSON request body validation before sending
• View response status code, status text, time taken, and size
• Pretty-printed JSON responses
• Tab-based response viewer:
  • Body (formatted JSON / text)
  • Headers (key–value metadata)
  • Raw (unformatted response)
• Graceful handling of:
  • Network errors
  • Invalid JSON
  • Non-JSON responses
  • CORS issues (browser limitations)
• Clean, minimal UI focused on developer experience

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Why this project?

Tools like Postman and Insomnia are powerful but:

• Heavy on memory
• Slow to start
• Desktop-only
• Increasingly account-gated

This project explores how much of that core functionality can be delivered as a pure frontend web application, while remaining fast, simple, and accessible.

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🛠 Tech Stack

• React + TypeScript
• Vite (fast build tooling)
• Tailwind CSS (utility-first styling)
• Native Fetch API
• Notistack (snackbar notifications)
• Vercel (deployment)

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Architecture Highlights

• Clean separation of concerns:
  • components/ → UI only
  • hooks/ → request logic (useApiRequest)
  • types/ → shared TypeScript contracts
• Safe JSON handling:
  • Request body validated before sending
  • Responses parsed defensively (no crashes on non-JSON)
• UI state (tabs, loading) separated from data state (responses)

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APIs used for testing

• JSONPlaceholder – mock REST APIs
  https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com

• httpbin – request/response inspection
  https://httpbin.org

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Getting Started (Local)

git clone https://github.com/Rahan-M/API_Client.git
cd API_Client
npm install
npm run dev