Bowire

Bowire, published by Küstenlogik, is an interactive multi-protocol API browser and command-line tool for the .NET ecosystem, currently available at version 2.7.0 across a total of seven released versions. Categorized as an API development and testing workbench, its purpose is to let developers discover and invoke endpoints across a broad range of protocols from a single environment, covering gRPC (with reflection and transcoding support), REST via OpenAPI and Swagger specifications, GraphQL, SignalR, MCP, SSE, WebSocket, MQTT, Socket.IO, and OData. The tool is further extended through sibling plugins that add support for Küstenlogik Surgewave, Apache Kafka, IEEE 1278 DIS, and raw UDP traffic, making it relevant for teams working with heterogeneous or non-HTTP communication stacks alongside conventional web APIs. Bowire fits two primary use cases and deployment styles: it can be embedded directly alongside an ASP.NET application during development, or it can run as the standalone `bowire` CLI against any host, which suits scripting, ad hoc debugging, and testing of remote services. Typical users include backend and integration engineers who need to explore endpoint schemas, send requests, and validate protocol behavior without switching between multiple single-protocol clients. A defining characteristic of the software is its fully local operation: Bowire requires no accounts, collects no telemetry, and has no cloud dependency, which makes it suitable for environments with strict privacy, compliance, or offline requirements. All user state, including recordings, environments, and credentials, persists on disk under the `~/.bowire/` directory, so configuration and captured sessions remain portable and under the user's control. With its combination of wide protocol coverage, plugin extensibility, dual embedded and CLI modes, and local-first data handling, Bowire serves as a consolidated workbench for building, inspecting, and exercising APIs in .NET and polyglot service landscapes.

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