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Output Formats

httptap supports multiple output formats to suit different use cases, from interactive troubleshooting to automated scripting.

Rich Mode (Default)

The default output format uses the Rich library to display a beautiful waterfall table in your terminal.

httptap https://httpbin.io

Features

  • Colorized output with syntax highlighting
  • Visual progress bars for timing phases
  • Structured tables for easy reading
  • Network details including IP, TLS version, and certificate info
  • Response metadata showing status, headers, and body size

When to Use

  • Interactive debugging sessions
  • Visual inspection of request performance
  • Presentation of timing data to stakeholders

Compact Mode

One human-readable line per step, designed for terminal logs and redirect-chain tracing.

httptap --compact https://httpbin.io/get

Example Output

Step 1: 200 GET https://httpbin.io/get | dns=8.9ms connect=97.0ms tls=194.6ms ttfb=446.0ms total=447.3ms | 389 B

Features

  • Single line per step — HTTP status first, then method and URL, then per-phase timings, then human-readable body size.
  • Timings carry ms suffix so they read naturally alongside prose log entries.
  • Response size is formatted with the appropriate unit (B, KB, MB).
  • Redirect summary table is still printed after the per-step lines so the overall shape of the chain stays visible.

When to Use

  • Append to log files
  • Quick performance comparisons
  • CI / CD pipeline output where you still want to see the URL and status
  • Terminal-friendly summaries when the full waterfall is too noisy

Metrics-Only Mode

Raw metrics without formatting, optimized for parsing by other tools.

httptap --metrics-only https://httpbin.io

Example Output

Step 1: dns=30.1 connect=97.3 tls=199.0 ttfb=472.2 total=476.0 status=200 bytes=389 ip=44.211.11.205 family=IPv4 tls_version=TLSv1.2 proxy=direct

Features

  • Machine-parseable format
  • Complete metrics including network details
  • Consistent structure for easy extraction
  • No colors or formatting characters

When to Use

  • Scripting and automation
  • Data collection for analysis
  • Integration with monitoring tools
  • Parsing with awk/grep/sed

Parsing Examples

# Extract TTFB values
httptap --metrics-only https://httpbin.io/delay/1 | grep -oP 'ttfb=\K[0-9.]+'

# Get all timing metrics
httptap --metrics-only https://httpbin.io/get | \
  awk '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){if($i ~ /=/) print $i}}'

JSON Export

Full request data exported as structured JSON for comprehensive analysis.

httptap --json output.json https://httpbin.io

JSON Structure

{
  "initial_url": "https://httpbin.io",
  "total_steps": 1,
  "steps": [
    {
      "url": "https://httpbin.io",
      "step_number": 1,
      "timing": {
        "dns_ms": 8.947,
        "connect_ms": 96.977,
        "tls_ms": 194.566,
        "ttfb_ms": 445.951,
        "total_ms": 447.344,
        "wait_ms": 145.461,
        "xfer_ms": 1.392,
        "is_estimated": false
      },
      "network": {
        "ip": "44.211.11.205",
        "ip_family": "IPv4",
        "http_version": "HTTP/2.0",
        "tls_version": "TLSv1.2",
        "tls_cipher": "ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256",
        "cert_cn": "httpbin.io",
        "cert_days_left": 143,
        "tls_verified": true,
        "tls_custom_ca": null,
        "proxy_url": null,
        "proxy_source": null
      },
      "response": {
        "status": 200,
        "bytes": 389,
        "content_type": "application/json",
        "server": null,
        "date": "2025-10-23T19:20:36+00:00",
        "location": null,
        "headers": {}
      },
      "error": null,
      "note": null
    }
  ],
  "summary": {
    "total_time_ms": 447.344,
    "final_status": 200,
    "final_url": "https://httpbin.io",
    "final_bytes": 389,
    "errors": 0
  }
}

Features

  • Complete data export of all phases
  • Structured format for easy parsing
  • Redirect chain support with multiple steps
  • Metadata preservation (headers, timestamps)
  • Error information when requests fail

When to Use

  • Post-processing analysis
  • Integration with data pipelines
  • Long-term performance tracking
  • Detailed debugging sessions
  • Sharing results with team members

Processing Examples

Using jq to extract specific fields:

# Get total time
jq '.summary.total_time_ms' output.json

# Extract all TTFB values
jq '.steps[].timing.ttfb_ms' output.json

# Get certificate expiration
jq '.steps[0].network.cert_days_left' output.json

# Filter failed requests
jq 'select(.summary.errors > 0)' output.json

Redirect Chains

When using --follow, all output formats include data for each step in the redirect chain.

Rich Mode

Shows a summary table with totals for the entire chain.

httptap --follow https://httpbin.io/redirect/3

Compact Mode

Outputs one line per redirect step, followed by the redirect chain summary table.

httptap --follow --compact https://httpbin.io/redirect/2

Output:

Step 1: 302 GET https://httpbin.io/redirect/2 | dns=8.9ms connect=97.0ms tls=194.6ms ttfb=446.0ms total=447.3ms | 0 B
Step 2: 302 GET https://httpbin.io/relative-redirect/1 | dns=2.7ms connect=97.5ms tls=194.0ms ttfb=400.2ms total=400.6ms | 0 B
Step 3: 200 GET https://httpbin.io/get | dns=2.6ms connect=97.4ms tls=197.3ms ttfb=403.2ms total=404.0ms | 389 B

JSON Export

Includes all steps in the steps array with complete timing and metadata.

httptap --follow --json redirect-chain.json https://httpbin.io/redirect/3

Combining Options

Output format options can be combined with other flags:

# Follow redirects with compact output
httptap --follow --compact https://httpbin.io/redirect/2

# Export redirect chain to JSON with metrics display
httptap --follow --json chain.json --metrics-only https://bit.ly/example

Note

When both --json and display modes (--compact, --metrics-only) are used together, the display mode shows on stdout while JSON is written to the file.

SLO Threshold Overlay

--slo KEY=MS[,KEY=MS...] augments every output mode with a pass/fail verdict evaluated against the final successful request.

  • Rich mode — a framed panel is printed after the waterfall. The border is green for pass, red for fail, and each violation is listed with actual, threshold, and overrun in milliseconds.
  • Compact mode — behaves as Rich mode above; the SLO panel is still printed after the one-line step summaries.
  • Metrics-only — the line for the final successful step gains slo=pass or slo=fail slo_violations=<keys> tokens. Intermediate redirect steps remain unchanged.
  • JSON — summary.slo contains pass, thresholds_ms, and violations[] (each with key, threshold_ms, actual_ms, delta_ms). Absent when --slo is not supplied.

A violation makes httptap exit with code 4 while still rendering the full output, so the evidence is preserved for post-mortem.

See the dedicated SLO Threshold Checking page for the specification grammar, evaluation rules, exit-code precedence, and CI / cron recipes.

What's Next?