This guide will walk you through making your first API request with RESTK. By the end, you'll understand the basics of the request builder and response viewer.

Prerequisites

RESTK installed on your machine (Installation guide)

Platform Availability

RESTK runs natively on macOS and Windows. This guide uses macOS shortcuts (Cmd); on Windows, use Ctrl instead.

Making Your First Request

Open RESTK

Launch RESTK from your Applications folder on macOS, or from the Start menu on Windows.

Create a New Request

Click the + button in the tab bar or press Cmd+T to create a new request tab.

Enter the URL

In the URL bar, enter: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1

Send the Request

Click the Send button or press Cmd+Enter.

View the Response

The response will appear in the response panel, showing the JSON data returned by the API.

Understanding the Response

After sending the request, you'll see:

Status Code - 200 OK indicates a successful request
Response Time - How long the request took
Response Body - The JSON data returned by the API

{
  "userId": 1,
  "id": 1,
  "title": "sunt aut facere...",
  "body": "quia et suscipit..."
}

Congratulations!

You've made your first API request with RESTK!

Trying Different HTTP Methods

Now let's try a POST request:

Create a new request tab (Cmd+T)
Change the method from GET to POST
Enter the URL: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts
Click the Body tab and select JSON
Enter the following JSON:

{
  "title": "My First Post",
  "body": "Hello from RESTK!",
  "userId": 1
}

Send the request (Cmd+Enter)

You should receive a 201 Created response with the created post data.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	macOS	Windows
New Request	`Cmd+T`	`Ctrl+T`
Send Request	`Cmd+Enter`	`Ctrl+Enter`
Focus URL Bar	`Cmd+L`	`Ctrl+L`

Quick Start