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Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

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Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#61

Post by Sardtok »

criddell wrote: post #36
setheron wrote: post #18

Very sad half the comments are asking for MacOS app. The rise of development on MacOS for server development when the final target is Linux will cause long term harm to the newer generation of engineers

Or maybe some of the newer generation will take time to update Linux to be more competitive with macOS for developers. Could be a long term win for Linux fans.

Linux is good for development, but Apple hardware is pretty damned nice.

Now if Framework laptops were available in Norway, I'd probably rather have that, even if they're not as powerful.

Also, depending on where you work, there might be restrictions in the choice of platform. Usually limited to Mac or Windows.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#62

Post by yoavm »

1a527dd5 wrote: post #48
rynn wrote: post #38

How does it compare to mitmmitmproxy2swagger? https://github.com/alufers/mitmproxy2swagger

The first and immediate difference for me is the ability to recall the name. I can recall Postman/Insomina fine, and now for API Parrot. I'm never going to be able to recall mitmproxy2swagger. Unfortunately, names matter.

As someone who uses mitmproxy and swagger quite often, I actually think the name isn't so bad. I haven't even looked at the readme but I already know what it does, how to run it and what output to expect.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#63

Post by Klonoar »

rorroe53 wrote: post #44
bearjaws wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always amazing to me people who will chastise people for using Macs. It is by far the most robust hardware and 15 years later Windows laptops may finally be catching up. My first programming job was LAMP so I had a Linux desktop and loved it. Later I got a new job that gave us laptops, but they were quite beefy. I had a Dell laptop with an Nvidia GPU and an Intel iGPU... After updating my OS my gpu was the only…

Macbooks have been nice since M1 era, but the Intel Macbooks between years 2013-2020 were hardly robust. My partner's 2014 MBP Retina's screen plastic film started peeling off, which was a known design flaw of those models. Later the ones with butterfly keyboard were notoriously unreliable, with keys getting stuck. Personally I haven't had much trouble with Linux on modern Thinkpads. Very little to configure manually…

Well, no. The 2015 MBP is a well known workhorse that stretched many people professionally up to the M1. I would absolutely agree that the 2016-2020 Intel MacBooks were rough though.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#64

Post by pvarghav »

m00dy wrote: post #24

can it reverse websocket-protocols ? If so, how does it do binary decoding etc ?

Currently only HTTP requests are supported. I might add support for websockets later, however that is a harder problem to solve due to the binary encoding etc.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#65

Post by pvarghav »

moon82 wrote: post #30

looks amazing! thanks for sharing, will give it a shot in a short while. Btw, how do you keep yourself motivated on working on free projects? Obviosly it takes a lot of effort and no one is paying for that.

Thank you!

Working on this side project has been both fun and rewarding. I've learned a lot throughout the process, which keeps me motivated even without immediate financial gain. I have plenty of ideas on how to improve the software in various ways. Some of these enhancements could become part of a "pro" version tailored for businesses. My long-term ambition is to turn this into a full-fledged product, which would enable me to dedicate more time to its development.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#66

Post by bjt12345 »

pvarghav wrote: post #26
brushfoot wrote: post #8

Impressive project. I was curious how it discovers data relationships and was going to check the repo, but it looks like there's no code, only issues and releases. Is that right? Which leads me to... - Is this closed source? - Does it cost money? - How does it discover data relationships?

Thanks for your interest! - Is this closed source? Currently, the code is not open source, but I might open-source parts of it in the future. - Does it cost money? The software is free to use. If there is demand, I might create a "pro" version for businesses in the future. However, I intend to always have a free version available for individuals. - How does it discover data relationships? I've discussed how it discov…

If this can save me time at work, I'd be happy to throw some money at it.

My bosses OTOH...let's just say, there's no penalty within companies for pointy haired bosses not making decisions to purchase something like this and ignoring staff.

It's a false economy but I'm tired of it and just purchase what I can afford.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#67

Post by Merad »

setheron wrote: post #18

Very sad half the comments are asking for MacOS app. The rise of development on MacOS for server development when the final target is Linux will cause long term harm to the newer generation of engineers

Really? In the modern .Net world (originally .Net Core) it's very common for devs to use Windows machines to write code whose CI pipelines and deployed environments are all Linux. I've seen a handful of issues with things like path separators and file system case sensitivity, but we're talking about 3 or 4 minor problems in 6-7 years that I've been using it.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#68

Post by faizshah »

rynn wrote: post #38

How does it compare to mitmmitmproxy2swagger? https://github.com/alufers/mitmproxy2swagger

This might be more useful than the OP. This thing lets you translate HAR to Swagger…

My usual process is Dev tools -> Copy as CURL -> delete unnecessary headers -> translates to requests in python (these days I just use ChatGPT) -> wrap in python sdk for managing auth etc.

The OP’s correlation features are really nice though.

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#69

Post by sebmellen »

This is incredible. We’ve spent ages and ages figuring out the weird internals of certain legacy systems that we’ve ended up having to use bots or RPA to integrate with. If you can polish this into a true product, we would pay for it!

Any chance of a Mac version?

Re: Show HN: API Parrot – Automatically Reverse Engineer HTTP APIs

#70

Post by cellwebb »

setheron wrote: post #25
yoavmmn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays everything runs on docker anyway

You'd never see a Windows developer work in MacOS or a iOS developer work in Linux but Linux developers (server side) routinely work in MacOS Unnecessary abstraction

All SNES games should have been developed in Mario Paint or it was an unnecessary abstraction
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