pyrestfile

Parse VS Code REST‑Client .rest files into plain Python objects you can feed to any HTTP client — perfect for load‑testing, fixtures, and scripting.

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Why?

The VS Code REST‑Client extension is fantastic for ad‑hoc API calls, but its request files aren’t machine‑readable out of the box. pyrestfile lets you keep those same files in your repository and programmatically use them or validate them within Python.

Features

• ✅ Parse multiple requests per file (separated by ###).
• ✅ Preserve method, URL, headers, and body exactly as written.
• ✅ Ignore full‑line comments (# or //) in the same places VS Code does.
• ✅ Validate JSON bodies when Content‑Type: application/json is set.
• ✅ Zero runtime dependencies.

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Installation

# library only
pip install pyrestfile

# with dev / test tooling (pytest, coverage, pre‑commit)
pip install ".[dev]"

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Quick‑start

from pyrestfile import parse_rest_file

with open("api.rest") as f:
    requests = parse_rest_file(f.read())

for req in requests:
    print(req.method, req.url)

HTTPRequest instances expose:

attribute	type	example
method	str	"POST"
url	str	"https://api.example.com/v1/users"
http_version	str	"HTTP/1.1" (optional)
headers	dict[str, str]	{"Content-Type": "application/json"}
body	str or None	"raw body text"

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Using with Locust

# locustfile.py
import random
from locust import HttpUser, task, between
from pyrestfile import parse_rest_file

REQUESTS = parse_rest_file(open("api.rest").read())

class APIUser(HttpUser):
    wait_time = between(1, 3)

    @task
    def random_call(self):
        r = random.choice(REQUESTS)
        self.client.request(
            method=r.method,
            url=r.url,
            headers=r.headers,
            data=r.body,
        )

Run with locust -f locustfile.py.

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Development & Testing

# create virtual env of your choice, then
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pre-commit install          # lint on every commit
pytest -q                   # run unit tests

CI

A ready‑made GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/unit_tests_and_code_checks.yaml) runs pre‑commit and pytest on every push.

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Roadmap

• File includes (@file=./payload.json).
• JavaScript test scripts (low priority).
• CLI (pyrest run api.rest).

PRs welcome!

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License

MIT © 2025 Abel Castillo