HTTPie vs SwiftPie White-Box Testing Workspace

Part of the https://github.com/brandonbloom/SwiftPie vibe-coding experiment.

This workspace compares two HTTP client implementations:

• http - The official Python implementation of HTTPie (baseline)
• spie - A work-in-progress Swift clone of HTTPie

The testing workflow consists of three phases:

1. Checklist Phase - Extract and maintain a comprehensive list of HTTPie features from its --help output
2. Testing Phase - Execute test plans for individual features
3. Orchestration - Coordinate the full testing workflow

Start the testing workflow:

/run-tests

This slash command will orchestrate the entire process by spawning agents for checklist curation and feature testing.

The workflow uses dedicated agents to avoid context overload:

• checklist-curator - Extracts HTTPie features and maintains the checklist
• feature-tester - Tests individual features and documents deviations
• run-tests - Orchestrates the workflow (slash command)

• Re-runnable: All agents detect existing outputs and update them appropriately, supporting iterative testing as spie evolves
• Isolated Testing: All tests execute against a local httpbin server; no external network access
• Clear Attribution: Each feature gets a slug identifier (valid filename component) for easy reference
• Issue Tracking: Any deviation between http and spie is documented as an issue locally and can be synchronized to GitHub
• Context-Efficient: Heavy lifting delegated to specialized agents to avoid context overload in the orchestrator
• GitHub Integration: Local issues can be synchronized to the upstream SwiftPie repository using the gh CLI tool

• checklist.md - Master list of HTTPie features with slugs (auto-updated by checklist-curator agent)
• features/{slug}.md - Test plan and results for each feature
• issues/{issue-id}-{feature-slug}.md - Detailed issue documentation (created by feature-tester agent)
• .claude/agents/ - Agent definitions for checklist-curator and feature-tester
• .claude/commands/run-tests.md - Orchestration slash command

Feature Slug: A URL/filename-safe identifier derived from a feature name (e.g., json-body for JSON request bodies). Used as an anchor throughout the workflow.

Issue: Any deviation between http and spie behavior. Must document:

• What was tested
• What was expected
• What actually happened
• Why it is an issue

Issue ID: Generated with python3 -c 'import random; print(random.randint(10000, 99999))'

• HTTP Server: A local httpbin instance runs in the background during testing
• Constraints: Only test using http and spie CLIs against the local httpbin server
• Server Documentation: See ./context/httpbin-swagger.json for the API specification

Both http and spie must be on your PATH before starting. Verify with:

which http && which spie

To synchronize local issues to the SwiftPie GitHub repository, install and authenticate the gh CLI:

# Install (if not already installed)
brew install gh # macOS
# or: sudo apt install gh # Linux
# Authenticate
gh auth login

See ISSUE_TRACKING.md for details on GitHub synchronization workflows.