Sending Requests

Compose and fire an HTTP request from the Omnibox — the single URL bar that also imports curl, runs commands, and searches your work.

In this chapter

• The method selector
• The URL input
• Omnibox modes
• Importing a curl command
• Sending, cancelling, saving
• The request panel tab strip
• Generating code snippets

The method selector

At the left of the request bar sits the method selector — a text button showing the current HTTP method (color-coded) and a chevron. Click it to pick a different method. Its tooltip reads HTTP method for this request — changes how the body and cache behave.

The URL input

The URL field is variable-aware. Its placeholder reads Enter URL, type > for commands, or search….

• Any {{variable}} you type renders as a colored accent pill inline.
• When the request’s interpolated and path-substituted URL differs from what you typed, a second line prefixed with ↳ appears below the field, showing the exact final URL that will be sent. Use it to confirm your variables and path parameters resolved the way you expected.

See Variables & Environments for how {{...}} tokens are resolved, and Params & Headers for :name path variables.

Omnibox modes

The URL field classifies what you type and behaves accordingly. You never switch modes manually — Beacon detects them:

The dropdown

Command, search, and variable modes open a dropdown below the field. Navigate it with the arrow keys, run the highlighted row with Tab or Enter, and dismiss with Esc.

• Command palette rows: New Tab (⌘T), Switch to Light/Dark Theme, Toggle Layout (Side-by-side / Stacked), Open Collections, Open History, Open Environments.
• Search rows: matching saved requests (name + collection + method badge) plus your last 30 history entries (URL + method), up to 8 rows.
• Variable rows: matching enabled variables from the environment, collection, or globals — each row shows {{key}} and a source · value line, up to 8 rows.

Importing a curl command

Paste anything beginning with curl into the URL field and Beacon imports it immediately as a request. (The paste is read from the clipboard event, so embedded newlines survive.) While in curl mode the Send button relabels to Import, with the tooltip Import this curl command as a request.

The parser handles:

• -X / --request — the method
• -H / --header — headers
• -d / --data / --data-raw / --data-binary — the body
• -F / --form — multipart form fields (forces POST)
• -u / --user — becomes an Authorization: Basic header (base64-encoded)

It respects single, double, and ANSI-C $'...' quoting, and skips value-consuming flags it doesn’t use (--connect-timeout, -A, -b, -x). Query params in the URL are split out into the Params list, the body type is auto-detected from the Content-Type or by attempting JSON.parse (falling back to raw), and path parameters are synced.

Sending, cancelling, saving

Two icon buttons sit between the URL field and the Send button:

• Save (disk icon) — Save this request into a collection. ⌘S. See Collections.
• Code (<> icon) — Generate code for this request in another language/tool. Opens the Code Snippet modal (below).

The Send button shows a paper-plane icon and the label Send, tooltip Send this request. ⌘↵. Pressing Enter in the URL field also sends.

• While a request is in flight, the button becomes a red Cancel button with an animated beam. Click it to abort the request.
• In curl mode, the button reads Import instead of Send.

Note: There is no send-and-watch or polling control in this bar. Repeated/watched sends live on the response side (see Living Response).

The request panel tab strip

Below the URL bar, the request is edited across six panels:

Each panel is covered in its own chapter: Params & Headers, Authorization, Request Body, and Scripts & Tests.

Generating code snippets

Click the Code button to open the Code Snippet modal. Pick a target language along the top and copy the result with the Copy button (which briefly shows Copied! for 2 seconds).

Ten targets are available:

Note: Snippets are generated from the fully-resolved request, so the code matches a real send. {{variables}} are interpolated (environment > collection > global), :pathParams are substituted, and the effective auth and headers are resolved through the folder → collection inheritance chain. The output never leaks {{tokens}} and never drops an inherited or OAuth Authorization header. GraphQL bodies are emitted as {query, variables} JSON with the right Content-Type.

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See also: Request Body · Params & Headers · Authorization · Collections