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Using with Newman, Bruno & Postman

When you’re testing APIs using tools like Newman, Bruno, or Postman, you can easily run dozens, even hundreds, of requests in a single collection.

But once those requests start flying, visibility quickly disappears:

  • Newman’s —verbose mode floods the console with raw data. Gives you a details of the requests made, but unreadable at scale.
  • Bruno’s CLI output is clean and compact, yet lacks a way to drill into each request and response once the run is complete.
  • Postman’s GUI shows individual results but makes it diffucult to compare or trace changes across multiple calls.

As a result, debugging test failures or investigating API behavior means rerunning collections, manually logging payloads, or digging through partial console output instead of simply seeing what happened.

Use Inspectr for a better visibility

Section titled “Use Inspectr for a better visibility”

Inspectr sits between your API client and your backend.

You point your requests to Inspectr (the proxy), and it transparently forwards them to your real API, capturing everything along the way.

This gives you a live, navigable view of all requests and responses:

  • Explore headers, body, status, and latency.
  • Filter by method, endpoint, or status code.
  • Compare calls side-by-side and replay them instantly.
  • Keep using your existing tools — no test script changes required.

One-time setup

Section titled “One-time setup”

Start Inspectr and forward to your backend (example backend on port 3000):

Terminal window
inspectr --backend=http://localhost:3000
# Proxy listens on http://localhost:8080 (default)
# Open the Inspectr UI at http://localhost:4004 to browse captured traffic

From here, just point your API tool to http://localhost:8080 instead of your backend, that’s it!

Newman

Section titled “Newman”

Newman is the command-line companion to Postman. It runs Postman Collections locally or in CI/CD pipelines, executing tests and reporting results.

The typical problem:

While Newman supports --verbose logging, it still produces a flat stream of request details that’s difficult to navigate. When a run fails, it’s hard to inspect individual request bodies or correlate them with their responses.

How to use Inspectr with Newman:

  1. Ensure your requests use a {{baseUrl}} variable in the collection.

  2. Run your collection (CLI options), pointing it to Inspectr:

Terminal window
newman run ./collection.json --env-var "baseUrl=http://localhost:8080"
  1. Open http://localhost:4004 in your browser to explore each captured call in detail.

Bruno

Section titled “Bruno”

Bruno is a modern, open-source graphical API client that stores requests as plain files, with a user-friendly UI, which runs collections through its fast CLI. It’s designed for speed, simplicity, and version control.

The typical problem:

While Bruno’s CLI output is concise, it’s not built for easy debugging. Once a run completes, you can’t easily inspect request/response details or compare calls between iterations.

How to use Inspectr with Bruno:

  1. Reference a base variable (e.g., {{baseUrl}}) in your .bru requests.

  2. Run Bruno (CLI options), overriding the variable to Inspectr :

Terminal window
bru run ./apis --env dev --env-var "baseUrl=http://localhost:8080"

or for a single request:

Terminal window
bru run ./apis/users/get-users.bru --env dev --env-var baseUrl=http://localhost:8080
  1. Open http://localhost:4004 to browse and analyze all captured requests and responses.

Postman

Section titled “Postman”

Postman is a graphical API client, probably the most commonly known API client, that lets you build, send, and test requests interactively; complete with collections, scripts, and environments.

The typical problem:

Postman’s History tab shows what you’ve sent, but navigating across similar calls or comparing payloads and responses can be tedious and manual. It’s especially tricky during multi-step workflows or debugging complex APIs.

How to use Inspectr with Postman:

  1. Define a baseUrl variable (at collection or global scope).

  2. Set it to http://localhost:8080.

  3. Update your request URLs to use {{baseUrl}}/path.

  4. Send requests as usual — Inspectr will capture and display them automatically.

Summary

Section titled “Summary”

Newman, Bruno, and Postman are excellent to easily build & run your requests.

Inspectr completes the picture by letting you see requests & responses - clearly, visually, and interactively.

Instead of guessing what happened during a test run, you can open Inspectr and immediately explore, search, compare, and replay every call that went through.