wscli

wscli

A lightweight and powerful Go command-line tool for interacting with WebSocket servers. Designed for testing, debugging, and scripting, wscli provides functionality similar to wscat but with additional features. This tool is actively developed.

🚀 Installation

Using Docker

$ docker run -it akshaykhairmode/wscli:latest -c "ws://example.com/ws"

Using go install

go install github.com/akshaykhairmode/wscli@latest

Download Prebuilt Binaries

If you don’t have Go installed, download the latest binaries from the Releases Page.

🔧 Usage

Connect to a WebSocket server

$ wscli -c ws://localhost:8080/ws

Connect with custom headers

$ wscli -c ws://localhost:8080/ws -H "Authorization: Bearer mytoken" -H "X-Custom: value"

Send a command immediately after connecting

$ wscli -c ws://localhost:8080/ws -x '{"action": "subscribe", "channel": "updates"}'

Send a close message with code 1000 and reason "normal closure"

$ wscli --slash -c ws://localhost:8080/ws
/close 1000 normal closure

Send a binary file

$ wscli --slash -c ws://localhost:8080/ws
/bfile /home/user/test.bin

✨ Features

• 🔹 Native Binaries: Easy installation across systems.
• 📤 Piped Input: Send piped input using | (disables interactive terminal features).
• 📨 Multiple Messages on Connect: Send multiple messages immediately after connecting.
• 🎭 Background Execution:
  • Run wscli in the background using nohup:

    $ nohup wscli -c ws://localhost/ws -w 1s > nohup.out 2>&1 &
    

  • Redirect output and run in the background:

    $ wscli -c ws://localhost/ws >> output.txt & 2>&1
    

• 📜 History Persistence: Maintain a command history for quick reuse.
• ⚡ Command Execution on Connect: Use -x to execute commands automatically.
• 📌 JSON Pretty Printing: Format JSON responses using --jspp.
• ⌨️ Terminal Shortcuts: Supports readline shortcuts like Ctrl+W (delete word) and Ctrl+R (reverse search). See full list.
• 🗂️ Binary File Transfer: Send a file as a binary message.

🛠 Available Flags

🛠 Slash Commands (Enable via --slash)

📊 Load Testing (Enable via --perf)

Load Message Templates

Example

$ wscli -c ws://localhost:8080/ws --perf --tc 1000 --lm "hello world {{RandomNumber 50}}" --rups 100 --mps 10

# Flags used:
# --perf (enable performance testing)
# --tc 1000 (create 1000 connections)
# --lm "hello world {{RandomNumber 50}}" (load message, generate a random number from 0 to 50)
# --rups 100 (ramp up 100 connections per second)
# --mps 10 (send 10 messages per second)

🚧 Upcoming Features

• WebSocket Listener: Implement a feature to start a WebSocket server.