Some time ago, I built a tool called HTTP File Generator to replace Swagger UI and keep my workflow as much as possible from within my editor.

I spend most of my time building API’s running on Azure. All of these API’s have a few things in common. To name a few:

• They would have some form of OAuth2 authentication that use Azure Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) as the Security Token Service (STS).
• They are deployed to at least 3 environments: Development, Staging, and Production.
• They can run locally, in development, staging, and production environments.

One of the first things I do when working with an API is to generate .http files using HTTP File Generator and generate an .env file with the necessary environment variables. I use the Azure CLI to get the access token for the API, in every environment and use it to generate the .env file.

To generate .http files, I do the following:

httpgenerator `
   https://localhost:5001/swagger/v1/swagger.js `
   --load-authorization-header-from-environment `
   --base-url "" `
   --skip-validation `
   --output .http

To generate the .env file, I do the following:

$api = "api.something.com"
$devJson = az account get-access-token --scope api://$api/dev/.default | ConvertFrom-Json
$stagingJson = az account get-access-token --scope api://$api/staging/.default | ConvertFrom-Json
$prodJson = az account get-access-token --scope api://$api/prod/.default | ConvertFrom-Json

$environment = @{
  local = @{
    authorization = "Bearer " + $devJson.accessToken
    baseUrl = "https://localhost:5001"
  }
  development = @{
    authorization = "Bearer " + $devJson.accessToken
    baseUrl = "https://api.dev.something.com"
  }
  staging = @{
    authorization = "Bearer " + $stagingJson.accessToken
    baseUrl = "https://api.staging.something.com"
  }
  production = @{
    authorization = "Bearer " + $prodJson.accessToken
    baseUrl = "https://api.something.com"
  }
}

Set-Content -Path .http/http-client.env.json -Value ($environment | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 10)

The script above will generate an .env file with the following content:

{
  "local": {
    "authorization" : "Bearer [some jwt token]",
    "baseUrl": "https://localhost:5001"
  },
  "staging": {
    "authorization": "Bearer [some jwt token]",
    "baseUrl": "https://api.dev.something.com"
  },
  "development": {
    "authorization": "Bearer [some jwt token]",
    "baseUrl": "https://api.staging.something.com"
  },
  "production": {
    "authorization": "Bearer [some jwt token]",
    "baseUrl": "https://api.something.com"
  }
}

When opening any of the .http files generated in a JetBrains IntelliJ IDE, you will be able to select which environment to use when executing the requests.

At some point the JWT tokens acquired from Azure CLI will expire and you will need to re-generate the .env file.