Kuestenlogik.Bowline 0.9.4

Bowline

A multi-protocol API workbench for .NET — gRPC, REST, GraphQL, MQTT, SignalR, WebSocket, SSE, MCP, OData, Socket.IO, DIS, UDP — runs against any service URL with zero code changes.

Quickstart · Features · Why Bowline · Docs · Downloads

What it is

Bowline is the workbench API engineers reach for when they need to explore, invoke, record, mock, and replay real network traffic — locally, embedded next to an ASP.NET service, or as a sidecar in CI. No cloud account, no SaaS, no proxy: it speaks the live wire across more than ten protocols and saves what it sees in a single, replayable format.

Install

# Windows (Winget)
winget install KuestenLogik.Bowline

# macOS / Linux (Homebrew)
brew tap kuestenlogik/bowline && brew install bowline

# Cross-platform (.NET tool)
dotnet tool install -g Kuestenlogik.Bowline.Tool

# Container
docker run --rm -p 5080:5080 ghcr.io/kuestenlogik/bowline:latest

→ Read the 5-minute Quickstart — covers the standalone CLI path and embedded ASP.NET integration.

Embedded mode

Mount Bowline inside an existing ASP.NET app — discovery picks up your services from the live IServiceProvider:

dotnet add package Kuestenlogik.Bowline

var app = WebApplication.Create(args);
app.MapBowline();   // visit /bowline
app.Run();

→ See Setup → Embedded for the per-protocol wiring.

What's in it

• Multi-protocol discovery — gRPC Reflection, OpenAPI, GraphQL introspection, SignalR hub metadata, MCP initialize, MQTT topic scan, OData $metadata. One tool, one mental model.
• All call types — unary, server-streaming, client-streaming, duplex. Wireshark-style streaming UI with append-only frame list and per-frame detail.
• Recordings + replay — capture sessions, replay against any URL, export as HAR or self-contained HTML CI report.
• Mock server — bowline mock --recording <file> replays a recording as a local API endpoint. Chaos injection, schema-only mocks (OpenAPI / proto / GraphQL SDL), and capture-on-miss for spec-by-example.
• AI bridge (MCP) — Bowline exposes its own discover / invoke / record operations as MCP tools so agents (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Copilot) can drive it directly.
• Standalone or embedded — bowline CLI tool, OCI container, or app.MapBowline() next to your services. Same engine.
• Plugins — extend with IBowlineProtocol. First-party plugins ship as separate NuGet packages so the host stays light (DIS, UDP, Socket.IO, OData, …).

Why this and not Postman / grpcurl / Insomnia

→ Full feature-by-feature breakdown in the Why Bowline tour.

Documentation

• Quickstart — zero to first call in five minutes
• Features — guided tour of every workbench surface
• Setup — embedded, standalone, Docker, sidecar
• Protocols — per-protocol setup, conventions, gotchas
• Architecture — plugin model, host packages, ALC isolation
• API reference — DocFX-generated reference for every public type

Roadmap & Community

• ROADMAP.md — what shipped, what's planned, what's deliberately out of scope
• Community — Discord, Discussions, Issues, Contributions
• CONTRIBUTING.md — how to write a plugin, run the smoke tests, prepare a PR

License

Apache 2.0