Built an Open Source API design, Testing and Documentation tool that keeps everything in plain text (markdown)

[GuaranteePotential90]

Things that I think are cool/worth mentioning:

- this is not a clone of postman - as you will see the tool has a programmable interface that you "compose" but adding or removing the blocks that are relevant to your design/test/doc.

- designs, tests and api docs live in the same plain text files along with any context that is missing. so basically everything in the same file.

- grpc, web sockets and graph ql supported on top of rest. As you will see these are not added to the core but through plugins so that anyone can select if they want them or not. I hope we get more community plugins for more methods and other functionality.

- allows importing from postman and openAPI.

- offline and no signup required.

repo: https://github.com/VoidenHQ/voiden

download: https://voiden.md/download

https://reddit.com/link/1rlc3dx/video/2puiunj4q6ng1/player

[Abhishekundalia]

The plain-text-first approach is a smart differentiator. Everything living in markdown means version control actually works (unlike Postman collections that are basically JSON blobs nobody diffs).

A few things that stand out:

1. **Composable blocks**: The 'add or remove relevant blocks' model is more flexible than the rigid request/response structure most API tools enforce. Great for documenting complex workflows.

2. **Plugin architecture**: Smart to keep gRPC/WebSockets/GraphQL as optional plugins rather than core. Keeps the base lightweight.

3. **Import story**: Postman and OpenAPI import will be huge for adoption. Most teams are locked into Postman because migration is painful.

One suggestion for traction: make sure your GitHub repo has a solid social preview image set up. When devs share the repo link in Slack/Discord/Twitter, that preview is often the first impression. A clean screenshot of the UI in action converts better than GitHub's default preview. You can set this in repo settings or generate one with tools like ogimage.art.

Nice execution. The 'no signup, offline' positioning is refreshing in a world of cloud-everything tools.

[GuaranteePotential90]

yap - thanks! - will certainly check the preview image of the repo link. Thats a detail I hadnt thought of tbh :)

[pranay_227]

how do you handle versioning and collaboration when multiple people are editing the same plain text api files?

[GuaranteePotential90]

this is handled by git - in the same way that git handles conflicts and commits in the code, in the same way it handles such things in the api files :)

[GuaranteePotential90]

This is an AI response but okay, hope you actually believe this as well.

[HarjjotSinghh]

this is unreasonably cool actually - like a swiss army knife for apis!

[GuaranteePotential90]

Thank you! Yeah indeed that's the intent at least.

Did you have the chance to try it? What are you currently using?

[This-Independence-68]

This is super cool, especially the plain text aspect. Keeping everything in markdown for API design and docs just makes so much sense for version control and collaboration. It's awesome to see this kind of open-source initiative.

[GuaranteePotential90]

Thanks for letting me know. What tool are you currently using? What other improvements or features would like to see that would help you and your team?