JetBrains have had support in their IDEs for http/rest files for years. Their implementation differs from the VSCode REST Client extension. VSCode has another extension, httpYac, that provides yet a third implementation that borrows from both of the others. Now Microsoft adds a fourth variant that's different from any of those. These are the implementations I'm aware of, but I'm sure there's others. They all get enough the same to make you think we've got something great, but then they don't get enough the same to really use this across IDEs, editors and command line. Everyone needs to stop, get together and create a standard that can exist across these tools.

Things from each that should be in such a standard.

1. Support for pulling variables out of environment files... especially a private file that won't be checked in to version control.
2. Support for variables within the http file itself.
3. Support for naming requests and defining request dependencies.
4. Support for JavaScript blocks. This means support for request, response and client objects need to be standardized.
5. Favor JavaScript over "magic". There's no need for a {{$guid}} magic variable if JavaScript can create a GUID and assign it to a variable. REST Client has a lot of magic to support things like authentication that would have been better left to JavaScript blocks.
6. Support unit tests.

Ideally we'd have both IDE/editor support and CLI support for running, but if there's a standard format then third parties can supply the CLI solutions.

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Document Details

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• ID: 26f1374f-556a-35fc-cc42-b8911746db80
• Version Independent ID: 26f1374f-556a-35fc-cc42-b8911746db80
• Content: Use .http files in Visual Studio 2022
• Content Source: aspnetcore/test/http-files.md
• Product: aspnet-core
• Technology: aspnetcore-test
• GitHub Login: @tdykstra
• Microsoft Alias: tdykstra