A native GUI for grpcurl users
istek speaks grpcurl's language — reflection, .proto imports, plaintext or TLS, all four call types — in a native Mac window, and it hands any call back to you as a grpcurl command. Keep grpcurl for scripts and CI; use istek for the back-and-forth of debugging.
Updated
The same ideas, in a window
| In grpcurl | In istek |
|---|---|
grpcurl localhost:50051 list (reflection) | Connect; the sidebar lists every service and method |
-proto, -import-path | Drag .proto files onto the window; imports resolve on their own |
-plaintext | TLS off (the default) |
-cacert, -cert, -key | TLS sheet: CA certificate, client certificate and key |
-insecure | Insecure: skip certificate verification — with a banner that stays up |
-H 'authorization: …' | Metadata Headers, with Mark as secret for tokens |
-d @ and typing messages into a stream | Run opens the stream, each further Run sends a message, End (⇧⌘E) half-closes |
Copy as grpcurl
Every call in istek can be copied out as a grpcurl command from the Request menu, so a request you shaped in the window drops straight into a script, a runbook or a bug report.
What grpcurl does better
- It is free and open source, and runs on Linux and Windows.
- It scripts and pipes; istek has no CLI and no CI mode.
- It accepts protoset files; istek reads
.protosource only. - grpcui, from the same authors, gives you a free web UI if a browser tab is enough.
What the window adds
- A transcript for streams, with the time since the previous message on every line.
- Tabs, request history and saved environments instead of shell history.
- Secrets in the Keychain instead of in your shell history.
- A status that tells a server error (
error, with the gRPC code) from a connection that never opened (fatal).