# Bowire

> The multi-protocol API workbench. Auto-discovers gRPC, REST/OpenAPI, GraphQL, SignalR, WebSocket, SSE, MQTT, NATS, Pulsar, JSON-RPC, SOAP, Socket.IO, OData, MCP, and OTLP services from a running endpoint and gives you a single browser UI to inspect schemas, call methods, stream messages, receive telemetry, mock backends, record/replay sessions, and assert on responses. Ships embedded as ASP.NET middleware (`MapBowire()`) or as a standalone .NET tool / container.

Bowire is plugin-based: each protocol is a separate NuGet package implementing `IBowireProtocol`, loaded out of `~/.bowire/plugins/` at startup. Sister repos extend the surface to wire-protocols (DIS, UDP), event streams (Surgewave, Kafka, AMQP), actor-systems (Akka), and specialty/domain plugins (Tactical API). New plugins can be scaffolded with `dotnet new bowire-plugin`.

Apache-2.0 licensed. Source at https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire. Distributed via nuget.org as `Kuestenlogik.Bowire.*` libraries and `Kuestenlogik.Bowire.Tool` for the CLI.

## Getting started

- [Quickstart](https://bowire.io/quickstart.html): five-minute walkthrough — embed in an ASP.NET app or run the CLI against any URL.
- [Downloads](https://bowire.io/downloads.html): .NET tool, NuGet packages, container image, OS-specific archives.
- [Why Bowire](https://bowire.io/why-bowire.html): design rationale and how it compares to Postman / Insomnia / Bruno.
- [Features overview](https://bowire.io/features.html): UI tour at a glance.

## Documentation

- [Documentation home](https://bowire.io/docs/): full reference manual.
- [Setup](https://bowire.io/docs/setup/): install paths — embedded middleware, standalone CLI, Docker sidecar, building from source.
- [UI guide](https://bowire.io/docs/ui-guide/): every pane and action in the browser workbench, with screenshots.
- [Protocol guides](https://bowire.io/docs/protocols/): per-plugin behaviour and configuration. Built-in: gRPC, REST, GraphQL, SignalR, WebSocket, SSE, MQTT, NATS, Pulsar, JSON-RPC, SOAP, Socket.IO, OData, MCP, OTLP. Sister-repo plugins: DIS, UDP, Surgewave, Kafka, AMQP, Akka, Tactical API. Includes a guide for writing your own.
- [Features reference](https://bowire.io/docs/features/): mock server, recording/replay, response chaining, test assertions, environments, flows, command palette, plugin system, performance graphs, freeform requests, multi-channel duplex.
- [Architecture](https://bowire.io/docs/architecture/): plugin pipeline, package layout, extension points for embedding deeply.
- [API reference](https://bowire.io/docs/api/Kuestenlogik.Bowire.html): types, methods, and extension points generated from the source.

## Workflows by audience

- [Backend developers](https://bowire.io/workflows/backend.html): inspect and exercise your own services without writing a client.
- [Testers / QA](https://bowire.io/workflows/testers.html): record / replay, assertions, no-code flows for CI, HTML reports.
- [AI agent builders](https://bowire.io/workflows/ai-agents.html): MCP server adapter — every discovered method becomes an MCP tool with JSON Schema input, ready for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP-aware agent.
- [Docs teams](https://bowire.io/workflows/docs-teams.html): export OpenAPI / proto / GraphQL schemas and generate samples from running services.

## Project

- [Source repository](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire): Bowire core (UI shell, plugin host, built-in protocol plugins).
- [Releases](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire/releases): tagged versions with offline doc snapshots (HTML zip + single-file PDF).
- [Issues](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire/issues): bug reports and feature requests.
- [Roadmap](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire/blob/main/ROADMAP.md): completed work and upcoming protocols.
- [Security policy](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire/blob/main/SECURITY.md): how to report vulnerabilities.
- [License](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire/blob/main/LICENSE): Apache-2.0.

## Optional

- [Bowire.Templates](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Templates): `dotnet new bowire-plugin` scaffolding for new protocol plugins.
- [Bowire.Samples](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Samples): runnable examples of common host configurations.
- [Bowire.Protocol.Dis](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Protocol.Dis): IEEE 1278.1 Distributed Interactive Simulation plugin.
- [Bowire.Protocol.Udp](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Protocol.Udp): generic UDP datagram inspection plugin.
- [Bowire.Protocol.Surgewave](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Protocol.Surgewave): Surgewave distribution-fabric tap stream plugin.
- [Bowire.Protocol.Kafka](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Protocol.Kafka): Apache Kafka producer / consumer plugin.
- [Bowire.Protocol.Amqp](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Protocol.Amqp): AMQP 0.9.1 + 1.0 plugin (RabbitMQ-tested).
- [Bowire.Protocol.Akka](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Protocol.Akka): Akka.NET remote actors plugin.
- [Bowire.Protocol.TacticalApi](https://github.com/Kuestenlogik/Bowire.Protocol.TacticalApi): Rheinmetall situational-awareness gRPC plugin.
- [llms.txt](https://llmstxt.org/): about this file format.