volt

Overview

Volt is a high-performance, keyboard-driven HTTP client that lives in your terminal. Built with Go and the Bubble Tea TUI framework, it delivers a responsive interface without sacrificing the speed and simplicity of the command line.

Perfect for developers who:

• Live in the terminal and hate context switching
• Want Postman's features without the Electron bloat
• Love Vim keybindings and keyboard-driven workflows
• Need a fast, scriptable HTTP client with a beautiful UI

Why Volt?

What makes Volt different?

Speed First - Built in Go with a concurrent architecture that handles HTTP requests asynchronously. Peak performance: 213K req/sec with 4µs latency.

Keyboard-Driven - Navigate, edit, and send requests entirely with your keyboard. Vim-inspired motions (h/j/k/l) eliminate the need for a mouse.

Terminal Native - No Electron, no browser overhead. A single 15MB binary that integrates seamlessly into your terminal workflow.

Beautiful Responses - Syntax-highlighted JSON/XML/HTML with color-coded status codes, automatic formatting, and scrollable views.

Performance

Volt is built for raw speed. The core engine is designed to minimize memory allocations and maximize throughput.

Benchmarks (Apple M4)

Note: At peak performance (100 workers), Volt can generate 1 Million requests in < 5 seconds.

Benchmarks run against a zero-latency local endpoint to measure engine overhead.

Real-World Benchmarks vs. hey ⚡

• You can test this with the included benchmark-remote.sh script.*

Installation

(WIP) Homebrew (macOS & Linux)

brew install owenHochwald/volt/volt

Pre-built Binaries

Download the latest release for your platform from the releases page.

macOS

# Intel Macs
curl -LO https://github.com/owenHochwald/Volt/releases/latest/download/volt_0.1.0_darwin_amd64.tar.gz
tar -xzf volt_0.1.0_darwin_amd64.tar.gz
chmod +x volt
sudo mv volt /usr/local/bin/

# Apple Silicon Macs (M1/M2/M3/M4)
curl -LO https://github.com/owenHochwald/Volt/releases/latest/download/volt_0.1.0_darwin_arm64.tar.gz
tar -xzf volt_0.1.0_darwin_arm64.tar.gz
chmod +x volt
sudo mv volt /usr/local/bin/

Linux

# x86_64
curl -LO https://github.com/owenHochwald/Volt/releases/latest/download/volt_0.1.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
tar -xzf volt_0.1.0_linux_amd64.tar.gz
chmod +x volt
sudo mv volt /usr/local/bin/

# ARM64
curl -LO https://github.com/owenHochwald/Volt/releases/latest/download/volt_0.1.0_linux_arm64.tar.gz
tar -xzf volt_0.1.0_linux_arm64.tar.gz
chmod +x volt
sudo mv volt /usr/local/bin/

Windows

Download volt_0.1.0_windows_amd64.zip from the releases page, extract it, and add volt.exe to your PATH.

Build from Source

Prerequisites: Go 1.25 or higher

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/owenHochwald/volt.git
cd volt

# Build and install (makes 'volt' available system-wide)
make install

# Or just build locally
make build
./volt

Quick Start

Once installed, simply run:

volt

This will launch the TUI interface where you can start making HTTP requests.

Vim Philosophy

Volt embraces Vim's modal efficiency:

• Navigation uses h/j/k/l where applicable
• Common actions are single-key commands
• Esc always returns you to a safe state
• Focus is indicated visually, eliminating mode confusion

CLI Load Testing

Volt also includes a powerful little HTTP load testing tool for direct access, accessible via the bench subcommand.

volt bench [flags]

Examples

# Basic throughput test
volt bench -url http://localhost:8080 -c 100 -d 30s

# POST request with custom headers
volt bench -url http://localhost:8080/api -m POST \
  -b '{"test":true}' -H "Content-Type: application/json"

# JSON output to file for CI/CD
volt bench -url http://localhost:8080 -c 50 -d 60s -json -o results.json

# Rate-limited testing
volt bench -url http://localhost:8080 -c 10 -d 30s -rate 1000

# For help!
volt bench -h

License

This project is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Star History

If you find Volt useful, please consider giving it a star ⭐ on GitHub!