React + Electron

A lightweight Postman-like desktop application built with React (Vite) + Electron, focused on sending HTTP requests and managing them locally. The goal of this project is to provide a simple, fast, and hackable API client with full local persistence.

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✨ Features

• Desktop app powered by Electron
• UI built with React + TypeScript (Vite)
• Send HTTP requests using:
  • GET
  • POST
  • PUT
  • DELETE
• Dynamic request execution based on selected HTTP method
• Manual trigger (request is only sent after clicking Send)
• Save requests locally (no cloud dependency)
• Extensible architecture (ideal for plugins or future features)

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🧱 Tech Stack

• Electron – Desktop runtime
• React – UI library
• Vite – Frontend build tool
• TypeScript – Type safety
• React Query (@tanstack/react-query) – Request handling & caching
• Material UI (MUI) – UI components
• Node.js – Backend runtime for Electron main process

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📁 Project Structure

.
├── electron/           # Electron main & preload processes
├── src/                # React application source
│   ├── components/     # Reusable UI components
│   ├── hooks/          # Custom React hooks
│   ├── services/       # HTTP / IPC logic
│   └── styles/         # Global and component styles
├── public/             # Static assets
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
└── vite.config.ts

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18
• npm or yarn

Install dependencies

npm install

Run in development mode

npm run dev

This command runs:

• Vite dev server (React UI)
• Electron app (desktop shell)

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🔁 HTTP Requests Flow

1. Select an HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
2. Enter the request URL
3. (Optional) Add headers and body
4. Click Send to execute the request
5. Response is displayed in the UI
6. Request metadata can be stored locally for later reuse

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💾 Local Persistence

Requests are saved locally using Electron’s filesystem access.

Typical stored data includes:

• Request name
• HTTP method
• URL
• Headers
• Body
• Timestamp

This ensures:

• Offline access
• Full user control over data
• No external services required

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🧪 Scripts

npm run dev           # Run Electron + Vite in development
npm run dev:vite      # Run React app
npm run dev:electron  # Run Electron

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🛣️ Roadmap

• Request collections
• Environment variables (like Postman environments)
• Import / export requests
• Request history
• Auth helpers (Bearer, Basic, OAuth)
• Response formatting & preview (JSON, XML, HTML)

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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👤 Author

Nicolas Queiroz

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This project is intended for learning, experimentation, and building a customizable API client tailored to specific workflows.