How To Use Requestly To Help With Your Network Debugging
Requestly io is an open-source front-end development platform that lets front-end developers write, test, and debug code quickly. Greater reliance on the back-end developers to build and maintain the API for the front-end developer, less reliance on the environment to test the product from start to finish (e.g., checkout flow), and sometimes trusted customers, especially if the code customer is activated on the web. Without information such as console logs or network logs, it is difficult for them to reproduce the problem in troubleshooting.
Requestly (available as a Requestly desktop app and Requestly chrome extension) functions as a local proxy on the device, allowing frontend developers to lessen their reliance on backend developers, get around environment complexity, and have total control over the network layer to inspect, capture, and modify HTTPS requests and responses.
Issues that Requestly addresses
- Build features while the backend API is being developed.
- Testing, verifying, and mocking API responses
- directly evaluating code modifications on live websites without deployment cycles
- stress testing of the program
- Utilizing Requestly sessions allows for faster bug reporting and debugging
In this article, we will look at using Requestly to debug your network. The most impressive feature of Requestly is its ease of use. It has a sophisticated, fuss-free interface and no intrusive popups. And the best part is that it’s free! As a developer, you’ve probably tried API debugging before and know how difficult it can sometimes be.
Requestly io makes it easier to have the requests and responses you’re about to edit written accurately and neatly, so you don’t have to sift through countless requests or error messages to find exactly what you’re looking for. Let’s look at how to use Requestly to speed up your development workflow effectively.
API Response Mocking
Requestly can be an effective tool if you ever need an API response for testing and debugging. There is no need to install Node or any of the additional 500 Javascript backend frameworks.
Launch the Requestly Android or Requestly GitHub to simulate API responses and click the Mock APIs button. You can create a new mock API with just a small JSON data from there.
Now, Requestly will provide you with a public URL that you can access through any data-fetching API or your web browser through the Requestly Chrome extension.
Transfer of production to the local environment
Have you ever needed to test a local API change but didn’t know how to do it in a way that mimicked a production deployment? This will be much easier than you think. Using Requestly's Redirect Rule feature, any network request for a specific URL can be routed to the URL you specify. The Map Local feature in the Requestly Desktop app also allows you to map your locally stored code file to the live environment.
The only steps required to use it are to open Requestly io, select HTTP Policy, and click the New Policy button. Then select Redirect Rule, and you’re good to go! Now you can just type in your production URL first, followed by the localhost path of the code you are trying to test. If you do this, all requests for your process will be routed immediately to your local channel.
Delay simulation
Easily test UI change delays due to network requests when retrieving data from the API. While you can calibrate your internet speed with the developer tools in your browser to get similar results, this doesn’t give you enough power, and there’s no real way to slow down your network requests You can use Requestly to delay a network request quickly within a specified number of seconds.
Select HTTP Rule from the menu as usual and then add a new Delay Network Requests Rule. Now all you need to do is mention the URL (you can use regex or direct matches for this) and mention the delay in milliseconds at this point. The latency time is capped at 10,000 milliseconds to improve browser performance. As a result, XHR/Fetch requests will now be delayed. This offering will include all kinds of queries and objects, including JS, CSS, images, videos, and other objects.
HTML Response Status Codes Simulation
We occasionally need to test the various potential errors that might occur while using the API while it is being developed. You have two options for this: you can either use Requestly and change the response status code with a single click, or you can manually modify your API code.
You can add a new Modify Response rule in Requestly by clicking the HTTP Rules button. With this, you can specify the URL from which you need a response and the expected response status code. Requestly does not stop you now; you can manually change the Response Body by tinkering with the response code being returned.
This potent choice is as exploratory as your imagination; there are countless potential outcomes, and it does not stop here.
In Requestly, you can provide static data to completely replace the response or programmatically create a JavaScript script to manipulate the response. Additionally, you can supply unique JS files locally from your computer and use them to alter results.
Add a script to each website
Using Requestly, you can add unique scripts to each web page. These scripts can be in JS or CSS. With the Requestly Insert Scripts feature, you can quickly test SaaS applications on any website, add custom stylesheets, or change how the site works with your JS logic.
This feature is powerful because it gives you complete freedom to do whatever you want—except for functions requiring close backend integration. You can quickly test things like analytics scripts, popups, and chat buttons using the services API. To do so, select the HTTP Rule button and add a new Insert Scripts rule. You can now specify the type of script and the URL to be injected. This can be JS or CSS code.
When using APIs, you can write code directly in Requestly or specify a URL from which you can insert a script. Additionally, you can specify whether the script should be loaded before or after the page loads. Not only that, but you can also add multiple custom scripts at the same time! Rules do not need to be formulated for the same situation.
Conclusion
More than 198 000 developers use Requestly, an open-source front-end development platform, in more than 6,000 organizations worldwide. This article will hopefully make it clear how Requestly can help you edit remote code and save you a ton of time. Even on websites where you do not have access to the source code, you can continue your debugging routine (add console logs and use breakpoints) using tools like Requestly.
In conclusion, Requestly proves to be a powerful and indispensable tool for front-end developers trying to optimize their productivity and deliver high-quality content in record time. Remove the backend development, and to give full control of the web level, for improved debugging, it should be to mimic API actions, local change requirements, modifications or changes to the fast-paced development, quickly solve the problems, and so on. Beyond that, a much more reliable and user-friendly experience can be provided. You can use the power of Requestly to streamline your front-end development and debugging journey on Requestly GitHub and Requestly Android and open up a world of possibilities in web development.
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