Vegha
A cross-platform, native, MIT-licensed API testing desktop app.
Bruno-class engine. Enterprise-class polish. Fully local. Zero telemetry.
Features · Install · Build · Shortcuts · Privacy
Why Vegha
The desktop API-testing category is crowded with Electron apps that boot slowly, eat memory, and quietly phone home. Vegha is a fresh alternative:
- Native binary — Avalonia + .NET 10, starts fast, stays responsive under load, smaller memory footprint.
- Local-first, zero telemetry, no phone-home by default.
- File-system-folder workspaces, optionally git-backed — your collections are plain-text Bruno-style
.bru files.
- MIT-licensed. Use it, fork it, ship it commercially.
- Enterprise-ready out of the box: SSO-brokered auth flows, secret-manager bindings, native git, mTLS, OAuth2 in the system browser.
Features
Request execution
- HTTP / REST
- GraphQL
- gRPC — unary + all streaming modes
- WebSocket
- SOAP 1.1 / 1.2 with WSDL
- SOAP WS-Security (Timestamp · UsernameToken) + WS-Addressing
- Per-request retry & timeout
- Connection timeline (DNS / connect / TLS / TTFB)
- Cookie jar, redirects, system proxy
- TLS client certificates
Authentication
- API Key · Bearer · Basic · Digest · NTLM · OAuth1
- OAuth2 — authorization-code + PKCE, client-credentials, password
- AWS SigV4 · WSSE UsernameToken · mTLS
OAuth2 authorization-code runs through the system browser with a loopback listener and a local token cache — no embedded webview.
Variables & environments
{{variable}} interpolation with cycle detection- Collection / environment / workspace scopes
- Mock data functions —
{{$randomInt}}, {{$guid}}, {{$timestamp}}, …
Scripting & testing
- Pre-request and post-response scripts in a sandboxed JS engine (Jint)
- The
bru / req / res API
- Test assertions with a dedicated Test Results view
- Hard limits: memory / time / recursion
- No filesystem, no process access from scripts
Collections & import
- Bruno-style
.bru collection format — plain-text, human-readable, git-friendly
- Importers:
- Bruno
.bru
- Postman v2 / v2.1 (collections + environments)
- Insomnia v4 / v5
- OpenAPI 3.x / Swagger 2.0
- WSDL → executable SOAP collection
- SoapUI / ReadyAPI projects
- OpenAPI sync with drift detection
Git (native UI)
- Init · clone · branch · checkout · stage
- Commit · push · pull · stash · diff
- Three-pane merge-conflict resolver
Backed by LibGit2Sharp — no external git required. HTTPS PAT + SSH-key auth via the OS keystore.
Secret managers
Reference secrets from environment variables with the secret://provider/path#field URI scheme — resolved at send time, never written to disk:
- Azure Key Vault — Entra ID service principal, or Azure CLI / managed identity
- AWS Secrets Manager — IAM access keys, or the AWS default credential chain
More providers (HashiCorp Vault, GCP Secret Manager, Doppler, 1Password, CyberArk Conjur) are planned.
Code generation
Generate equivalent request code in:
- curl · Node
fetch · Python requests
- Go
net/http · C# HttpClient · Java OkHttp
Workspaces & platform
- File-system-folder workspaces — optionally git-backed
- Light and dark themes (+ optional Liquid Glass on macOS)
- Native Windows and macOS desktop builds
- Headless CLI:
vegha run / import
- VSCode plugin (planned, v2)
Install
Download the latest build from vegha.ai or the GitHub releases page. Direct-download builds update themselves in-app via Velopack. Checksums are in SHA256SUMS.txt on each release.
Direct download
Requirements: Windows 10+, macOS 12 Monterey+, or a modern Linux distro (Ubuntu 22+, Fedora 38+, Arch).
Store builds
Prefer to build it yourself? See Build.
Build
Prerequisites: the .NET 10 SDK — that's it. There are no native build dependencies, and git operations are handled in-process by LibGit2Sharp.
Clone the repo and build the full solution:
git clone https://github.com/vegha-ai/Vegha.git
cd Vegha
dotnet restore
dotnet build # Debug build of every project
dotnet test # run the unit + integration suites
For an optimized build, add -c Release to dotnet build.
Run the desktop app
dotnet run --project app/Vegha.App
Run the headless CLI
The CLI shares the same engine as the desktop app. Run it with no arguments to print the verb list:
dotnet run --project cli
# Import an OpenAPI / Postman / Insomnia file into a collection folder
dotnet run --project cli -- import samples/openapi/petstore.json ./petstore
# Execute that collection — add --name "<request>" to run a single request
dotnet run --project cli -- run ./petstore
Packaged builds
Signed installers and store packages (Velopack, MSIX, MAS) are produced by the scripts in eng/ together with the GitHub Actions workflows in .github/workflows/.
Repo layout
.
├── app/ # Desktop UI (Avalonia 11) + Core engine projects
├── cli/ # Headless CLI — same engine as the UI
├── plugin-vscode/ # VSCode extension (planned, v2)
├── samples/ # Sample collections (Bruno petstore, OpenAPI petstore, SoapUI project)
├── docs/ # README icons and assets
└── eng/ # Build / packaging scripts (Velopack, MSIX, MAS)
Keyboard shortcuts
Shortcuts use Ctrl on Windows / Linux and ⌘ on macOS.
The in-app menus, the Help → Keyboard shortcuts dialog, and the Settings → Shortcuts page all render the gesture for whichever OS you're running on.
| Action | Windows / Linux | macOS |
|---|
| New request | Ctrl + T | ⌘ T |
| Open collection | Ctrl + O | ⌘ O |
| Import | Ctrl + I | ⌘ I |
| Settings | Ctrl + , | ⌘ , |
| Save request | Ctrl + S | ⌘ S |
| Find request | Ctrl + K | ⌘ K |
| Send request | Ctrl + Enter | ⌘ ↩ |
| Next / previous tab | Ctrl + Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab | ⌘ Tab / ⌘⇧Tab |
| Close tab | Ctrl + W | ⌘ W |
| Zoom in / out / reset | Ctrl + = / - / 0 | ⌘ = / - / 0 |
Privacy
Zero telemetry. Zero crash reporting. Zero phone-home.
The only outbound traffic Vegha ever issues is:
- The test requests you explicitly send.
- The auth flows you explicitly initiate (OAuth2, OIDC discovery, etc.).
- In direct-download builds only — periodic Velopack update checks.
There is no opt-out toggle because there is nothing to opt out of. MSIX and Mac App Store builds defer updates entirely to the store and skip step 3.
Distribution
Three build flavors from a single codebase:
| Flavor | Channel | Updates |
|---|
| Direct | github.com releases page | Velopack (in-app) |
| MSIX | Microsoft Store | Store-managed |
| MAS | Mac App Store (sandboxed) | Store-managed |
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Free to use, modify, and distribute, including commercially.
Acknowledgements
Vegha's request engine and importer logic is derived in part from Bruno (MIT), and the UI is built on Avalonia.
A long tail of incredible OSS makes this possible — see THIRD_PARTY.md for the full attribution list.
