Sublime REST Client

An HTTP client plugin for Sublime Text 4 inspired by the amazing REST Client extension for VSCode.

Sublime REST Client vendors the excellent urllib3 and uses certifi which is bundled with Sublime Text 4 to ensure secure HTTP requests.

This project is considered ALPHA and has only been tested in Mac OS X.

Installation

1. From Sublime Text 4, install Package Control if you haven't already.
2. Run Package Control: Install Package from the Command Palette.
3. Type REST and you should see REST Client in the list, select it to install.

Key bindings

Currently there is only a one command REST: Send request.

Sublime REST Client does not ship with default key bindings for it, you can add it yourself by opening Preferences: Key bindings and adding the following to the list of bindings:

{
   "keys": ["ctrl+alt+r"],
   "command": "rest_request"
}

Changing the keys to whatever combination you'd like.

Usage

Sublime REST Client provides the same simple, declarative way of defining HTTP requests as REST Client. As simple as:

https://httpbin.org/get

Invoking “REST: Send request” will send the request to the URL and write the response in another tab:

GET https://httpbin.org/get 200 OK

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2022 17:27:11 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 308
Connection: keep-alive
Server: gunicorn/19.9.0
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true

{
  "args": {},
  "headers": {
    "Accept-Encoding": "identity",
    "Content-Length": "59",
    "Host": "httpbin.org",
    "User-Agent": "python-urllib3/1.26.5",
    "X-Amzn-Trace-Id": "Root=1-623763ef-5339120230225c282d6687b2"
  },
  "origin": "109.181.57.85",
  "url": "https://httpbin.org/get"
}

Query parameters

Query parameters can be added as usual in the first line of the request definition:

GET https://httpbin.org/get?hello=world

Or the subsequent lines with an indentation:

GET https://httpbin.org/get
  ?hello=world
  &client=sublime

Request headers

Request definitions may include the HTTP method and request headers:

GET https://httpbin.org/get
user-agent: sublime rest client

Which will produce:

GET https://httpbin.org/get 200 OK

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2022 17:35:23 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 277
Connection: keep-alive
Server: gunicorn/19.9.0
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true

{
  "args": {},
  "headers": {
    "Accept-Encoding": "identity",
    "Host": "httpbin.org",
    "User-Agent": "sublime rest client",
    "X-Amzn-Trace-Id": "Root=1-623765db-0ff407a42748a89733c96bbb"
  },
  "origin": "109.181.57.85",
  "url": "https://httpbin.org/get"
}

Request may also include a payload:

POST https://httpbin.org/post
content-type: application/json

{
  "hello": "world!"
}

And its response:

POST https://httpbin.org/post 200 OK

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2022 17:34:14 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 465
Connection: keep-alive
Server: gunicorn/19.9.0
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true

{
  "args": {},
  "data": "{\n  \"hello\": \"world!\"\n}",
  "files": {},
  "form": {},
  "headers": {
    "Accept-Encoding": "identity",
    "Content-Length": "23",
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
    "Host": "httpbin.org",
    "User-Agent": "python-urllib3/1.26.5",
    "X-Amzn-Trace-Id": "Root=1-62376596-3d6be5d11f9dd27b26e7a27e"
  },
  "json": {
    "hello": "world!"
  },
  "origin": "109.181.57.85",
  "url": "https://httpbin.org/post"
}

Multiple request files

A single .rest file can contain multiple request definitions but they must be separated by lines starting with ###, for example:

GET https://httpbin.org/get
user-agent: sublime rest client

### maybe some description

POST https://httpbin.org/post
content-type: application/json

{
  "hello": "world!"
}

When invoking “Send Request”, Sublime REST Client will detect the request definition the cursor is currently on and send it.

Variable substitution

It's common to define several requests that make use of the same piece of information, for example, a JWT token that must be sent on all requests. To avoid having to duplicate the token on all definitions you can define variables using @name = value and make use of them in the request definitions with {{name}}:

@token = ABC123

GET https://httpbin.org/get
Authorization: Bearer {{token}}

Development

1. Install the plugin creating a symlink in $HOME/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 3/Packages to the root of this repo. The path may also be $HOME/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text/Packages.

ln -s `pwd` ~/Library/Application\ Support/Sublime\ Text/Packages

1. Run the REST: Send request command, or via the console window.run_command("rest_request")

To start developing:

1. Install Python 3.8.8 which is the version embedded in ST4, alternatively install the closest compatible version which is 3.8.13.
2. Create a virtual environment and activate it
   • Note: if you use pyenv note it relies on a .python-version file, which Sublime Text also uses with different contents and will cause it to ignore the plugin completely. A work around is to create a virtual environment normally and create a symlink in .pyenv/versions with the name 3.8.
3. make install-dev
4. Install direnv and run direnv allow to add the package to the PYTHONPATH. This is a work around to packaging sublime_rest as it there can only be one Python file at the root of plugins.

To update the version of urllib3 edit main.txt and run make upgrade-deps.

Alternatives

RESTer HTTP Client has the same philosophy as REST Client, however, its development seems to have stopped several years ago and thus does not target Sublime Text 4. Its code also uses the standard library for most of the HTTP request heavy lifting which seemed unnecessary and a potential security issue when urllib3 exists.

There are other HTTP clients for Sublime Text, many of which are better maintained and featureful, but don't follow the same simple, declarative philosophy of REST Client.