API Tree CLI

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A lightweight CLI tool that renders OpenAPI (Swagger) specifications as beautiful terminal tree diagrams. Supports local files and remote servers, with keyword search, LLM-optimized output, and RAG knowledge base export.

Features

• Zero Dependencies — Pure Python 3 standard library. No third-party packages required.

• Multi-Source — Read local JSON files or fetch from remote OpenAPI servers.

• Smart Search — -s flag filters endpoints by path, method, or summary.

• Color-Coded Methods — HTTP methods highlighted in distinct colors:

  Method	Color
  GET	Green
  POST	Blue
  PUT	Yellow
  DELETE	Red
  PATCH	Magenta

• HTML Export — --html saves a styled HTML file with Catppuccin light/dark theme toggle.

• Agent Output — --agent-output generates LLM-friendly formats for AI-assisted development.

• RAG Export — --rag-output generates structured chunks for vector databases and retrieval systems.

• Smart Path Merging — Auto-collapses single-child path segments for cleaner output.

• Springdoc Compatible — Auto-appends /v3/api-docs to bare URLs.

Installation

Standalone executables

Download from GitHub Releases — no Python required.

macOS: If you see "api-tree cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified", run:

xattr -cr /path/to/api-tree

Or right-click the binary → Open → Open Anyway.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/Abyss-PlayerEG/api-tree.git
cd api-tree
uv sync
uv run api-tree

Future

• pip install api-tree
• pipx install api-tree
• brew install api-tree
• winget install api-tree

Quick Start

# Connect to local server (default: localhost:8080)
api-tree

# Specify a server
api-tree http://localhost:9090

# Read from local file
api-tree ./openapi.json

Usage

Basic

api-tree                              # Default: localhost:8080
api-tree http://localhost:9090        # Custom server
api-tree /path/to/openapi.json        # Local file
api-tree -s auth                      # Search endpoints containing 'auth'
api-tree --html                       # Export as HTML

Regex Search

Use $:{pattern} syntax with -s flag for regex matching:

api-tree -s '$:{user|pet}'            # Match "user" or "pet"
api-tree -s '$:{^/api/v1}'            # Paths starting with /api/v1
api-tree -s '$:{GET|POST}'            # Match GET or POST methods
api-tree -s '$:{create|update}'       # Match create or update

If the URL has no path (e.g. http://localhost:9090), the tool auto-appends /v3/api-docs. To use a different endpoint, specify the full URL directly.

Agent Output (for AI-assisted development)

Generate LLM-optimized representations of your API structure. Useful when feeding API context to AI coding assistants.

api-tree --agent-output markdown      # Clean markdown table
api-tree --agent-output json          # Structured JSON
api-tree --agent-output curl          # Ready-to-use curl commands

Use cases:

• Feed API structure to ChatGPT/Claude for code generation
• Generate curl commands for API testing
• Create API reference docs for AI pair programming

RAG Knowledge Base Export

Generate structured chunks for vector databases and retrieval-augmented generation systems.

api-tree --rag-output jsonl           # One JSON object per line (for vector DB ingestion)
api-tree --rag-output json            # Full JSON structure
api-tree --rag-chunk-size 20          # Endpoints per chunk (default: 10)

Use cases:

• Build a searchable API knowledge base
• Enhance RAG systems with endpoint context
• Feed structured data to embedding pipelines

Configuration

api-tree --init-config                # Generate ~/.config/api-tree/config.json
api-tree --show-config                # Show current config

Update

api-tree update --check               # Check for new version (no install)
api-tree update                       # Download and install latest version

Supports single-file .py, macOS zip, Windows zip, and Windows installer. Downloads are verified with SHA256 and auto-rolled back on failure.

Config file:

{
    "output_dir": "~/Downloads",
    "default_url": "http://localhost:8080"
}

Screenshots