GitHub - VoidenHQ/voiden: Define, test, and document APIs like a developer, not a SaaS user. No accounts. No lock-in. No telemetry. Just Markdown, Git, hotkeys, and your damn specs.
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Define, test, and document APIs like a developer, not a SaaS user. No accounts. No lock-in. No telemetry. Just Markdown, Git, hotkeys, and your damn specs. - VoidenHQ/voiden

Voiden is an offline-first, git-native API tool built on Markdown Voiden is an API client we have been building that takes a different approach from most existing tools.

It didn’t start with the idea of “building a better Postman”.

A bit of background. Over time, API tooling has become heavyweight: cloud dependencies for local work, forced accounts, proprietary formats, and workflows that break the moment you are offline. On top of that, time wasted on fixing API specs that don’t match the code, docs in separate random tools, tests also separate and an overall governance mess. Not to mention collaboration.

So we asked a simple question: What if an API tool respected how developers already work?

That led to a few core ideas:

  • Offline-first , no accounts, no telemetry
  • Git as the source of truth.
  • Plain text files: specs, tests, and documentation live together in Markdown
  • A programmable interface instead of static forms: requests are composed from reusable blocks (endpoints, headers, auth, params, bodies, etc.) that you can structure the way you want
  • Plugin system for extending functionality rather than bloating the core with new features Some of our core plugins include gRPC,GraphQL,WebSockets,etc…

We have just also updated our docs to welcome community plugins, so teams can extend the tool for their own workflows or integrations. https://docs.voiden.md/docs/plugins/build-a-plugin

We opensourced Voiden because extensibility without openness just shifts the bottleneck. If (API) workflows should be transparent, the tools should be too.

Welcome to try out and share feedback- happy to chat with everyone.

Strong opinions are encouraged. :)

Github : https://github.com/VoidenHQ/voiden

Download here : https://voiden.md/download

  • TomasEkeli@programming.dev
    2·
    14 hours ago

    This looks interesting, but I don’t particularly want another client app for this when we can “just use curl” and have that in files (already very git-friendly)?

    This will not help many, but I’ve found a good way that helps me and my team, since we’re all in VSCode most of the time anyway. The extension “REST client” lets us write HTTP calls directly in a file and run them from there, with some basic variables and support for different kinds of authentication scheme and environment variables. It has replaced POSTman and Bruno for us: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=humao.rest-client

    If you’re not already using a vscode based IDE this won’t help you at all, sure. But, if you are - this lets you write up sequences of requests in a (still manual, but quite quick) file to test APIs and play with them. Highly recommended!

    • dhruv3006@lemmy.worldOP
      6·
      2 days ago

      Voiden’s core request model is based on composable blocks (for elements like headers and auth) that are reusable across requests for a DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) approach, unlike Bruno which treats the request as a single, monolithic object that leads to copy-pasting and maintenance burden.

      For documentation, Voiden provides living documentation by integrating runnable requests and human explanations side-by-side in the same Markdown file, ensuring it stays in sync with the API, while other tools’ documentation is often separate.

      From the monetisation side Voiden: Is an open-source community infrastructure project backed by a different main business, reducing the pressure to monetize aggressively. Bruno is as an open-source project that is under pressure to find a viable monetization strategy, which can lead to license shifts or paywalls.

      You can read about the comparison here : https://voiden.md/comparison

  • bobo@lemmy.ml
    3·
    2 days ago

    So you basically made org-mode + restclient for people who don’t use Emacs?

    • dhruv3006@lemmy.worldOP
      6·
      2 days ago

      That’s a pretty good comparison.

      The core idea of executable documentation next to your code is exactly what we were aiming for.

      The difference is that Voiden is a dedicated, cross-platform app for the modern ecosystem, bringing the power of that file-centric workflow to everyone. We specifically go further by offering resuable composable blocks for requests (closer to functions than monolithic objects), a unified toolchain for design, testing, and documentation, and a clean, Git-native experience for all developers.

      • bobo@lemmy.ml
        1·
        15 hours ago

        The core idea of executable documentation next to your code is exactly what we were aiming for.

        Do you need to use the electron app, or could you for example directly eval a source block from the editor?

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    2·
    2 days ago

    Postman […] offers a proprietary API platform for developers to design, build, test, and collaborate on APIs.

    Ok? Guess i’m too out of the loop. But thanks regardless.

    Edit: mixed the explicit “proprietary” from the german Wikipedia in the quote.