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Usage Scenarios

Explore common ways to use ihpp to fit your development workflow.

1. Quick Debugging (In-Memory)​

When you just need to inspect a few requests and don't care about saving the history for later, use the --in-memory flag. This is ideal for quick demos or debugging a transient issue.

ihpp --in-memory http://localhost:8080
  • Persistence: None. All data is lost when the process exits.
  • Port: The proxy will listen on :20003 (default) and forward to localhost:8080.
  • Management UI: Available at http://localhost:20000.

2. Managing Multiple Microservices​

If your application consists of multiple microservices, you can manage them all with a single ihpp instance. You can specify multiple proxies as positional arguments.

ihpp :3001,http://localhost:5001 :3002,http://localhost:5002 :3003,http://localhost:5003

Each service gets its own entry in the Proxies list in the dashboard, and you can see all traffic interleaved in the Recent tab or filter by specific proxy.

3. Persistent Workspace (Config File)​

For long-term projects, it's best to use a configuration file. This allows you to name your proxies and keep your settings consistent across sessions.

Create a file named ihpp.toml:

[server]
api-addr = ":20000"
db-path = "./project_traffic.db"

[[proxies]]
name = "Identity API"
listen = ":8001"
target = "https://identity.dev.local"

[[proxies]]
name = "Product Catalog"
listen = ":8002"
target = "http://localhost:9000"

Start ihpp with the config:

ihpp --config ihpp.toml

4. Reverse Proxying with Path Stripping​

If you need to proxy to a specific subpath, ihpp handles it simply by including the path in the target URL.

ihpp :8000,http://api.example.com/v1

Requests to http://localhost:8000/users will be proxied to http://api.example.com/v1/users.

5. Mobile App Debugging​

To inspect traffic from a mobile device or another machine on your network:

  1. Start ihpp listening on all interfaces (or your machine's IP).
  2. Configure your mobile app or device to use your machine's IP and the proxy port.
ihpp :3000,http://your-dev-server:8080

Point your mobile app to http://<your-machine-ip>:3000.