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RequestBite Inspector

Welcome to the documentation page for RequestBite Inspector.

What is RequestBite Inspector?

RequestBite is a simple and easy-to-use service that allows you to inspect webhook and HTTP requests. Go to requestbite.com/view and the service will automatically create a unique URL to which you can send your data for review.

The service collects and prints the following data:

  • Request headers
  • Query strings
  • Form fields
  • Uploaded files
  • Request body

Awaiting your first request

This is what the page looks like before you have sent your first request:

First request

Functionality of page

  • Run request
    This submits a POST request with a JSON payload to the server, similarly to what the curl command in the terminal window would do. This request is made directly from your browser and not forwarded through any backend.
  • Copy URL
    Copies the unique request URL to your clipboard.
  • Copy cURL command
    Copies the full curl command to your clipboard. If you're running a Linux or Mac system, you can paste this command into your terminal window and run it.
  • Delete view (not always present)
    This button deletes the current view. A view is the unique URL that you can submit your requests to. If you have more than one view, then you can also delete them one by one and their associated requests. When you delete a view, you will be automatically redirected to your next available view.
  • Select view (not always present)
    If you have more than one view avaialble, then you can click the dropdown and select another one. If the selected view has received requests, you will be redirect to the request dashboard.

The Request Dashboard

The Request Dashboard is what we call the page where you can see all requests for a given view as well as inspect them individually:

Request dashboard

The following data is presented for each request:

Request details

  • Host
    The public IPv4 or IPv6 address of the client sending the request.
  • HTTP verb
    The HTTP method used in the request (e.g. GET, POST, PUT, DELETE).
  • Link
    The request URL the client sent the request to (if you click this link, you will yourself send a GET request to the same URL). If you go back to the request dashboard and refresh the page, you will see your own visitin the list.
  • Timestamp
    The date and time in UTC when the request was received.

Request headers

This section lists all request headers sent by the client as key-value pairs.

See this list for a list of headers that are automatically stripped out.

Query strings

Note

This section is only present if query strings are sent by the client.

This section lists all query strings sent by the client as key-value pairs of arrays, since a query string key can have multiple values. E.g. sending a request to https://requestbite.com/req/XYZ?foo=bar&foo=baz will result in a presentation like this:

foo: ['bar', 'baz']

Form fields

Note

This section is only present if form fields are sent by the client.

If you send a request with a Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded or Content-Type: multipart/form-data header, then any textual form fields will be displayed in this section, i.e. what is commonly sent in regular HTML forms with <input> fields by web browsers.

Example output:

name_of_field: Value of field

Files

Note

This section is only present if files are uploaded by the client.

If you send a request with a Content-Type: multipart/form-data header (or if the request body only contains binary data), then any files uploaded will be displayed in this section in combination with their mime type and size.

It is also possible to download an uploaded file by clicking the download icon.

Example output:

name_of_field: image.svg - image/svg+xml - 28,805 bytes

Request body

Note

This section is only present if a body payload is sent by the client.

This section shows the request body sent by the client. If the body is JSON, it will get pretty-printed and syntax highlighted.

Functionality on the page

  • Clear all
    This will delete all requests for the current view. You will be asked to confirm this action. When all requests are deleted, you will be redirect to the entry page for the view.
  • Delete view
    This will delete the current view and all its associated requests. Just like the Clear all button, you will be asked to confirm this action. If you have more than one view, you will be redirect to your next available view. If you don't have any more views, you will be redirected to the entry page for a new view.
  • Delete request
    If you hover any of the requests in the sidebar, you see a red trash can icon. If you click that one, this associated request will be deleted.
  • Copy URL
    This will copy the URL of the current view to your clipboard.
  • Automatically show new requests
    If you have this checkbox checked, you will automatically be redirected to any new requests coming in. This is handy if you want to "tail" any requests you send for debugging purposes. If instead you want to focus on a specific request and ingore any new ones, you can uncheck this box.

Returned data

When you make a request, the service returns the following data in JSON format:

{
    "info": "Inspect request at https://requestbite.com/view/ID.",
    "status": "success"
}

... so that you can click the link and inspect the request.

Stripped request headers

While in most cases all your request headers will be presented on the request dashboard, we do strip out the following headers that would otherwise be added by our hosting provider Fly.io:

  • Fly-Client-IP
  • Fly-Region
  • Fly-Request-Id
  • Fly-Forwarded-Ssl
  • Fly-Forwarded-Port
  • Fly-Forwarded-Proto
  • X-Forwarded-For
  • X-Forwarded-Proto
  • X-Forwarded-Port
  • X-Forwarded-SSL
  • X-Request-Start
  • Via