Tools

curl Cheat Sheet — Common Commands and Flags

curl is the standard way to make HTTP requests from the terminal. This reference covers the flags you reach for when testing an API or downloading a file.

Put it into practice with the matching tool.

Look up a status code →

Basic requests

curl https://api.example.comGET a URL and print the body

curl -X POST URLUse a specific HTTP method

curl -i URLInclude the response headers in the output

curl -I URLHeaders only — sends a HEAD request

curl -s URLSilent — hide the progress meter

curl -sS URLSilent but still show errors

curl -L URLFollow redirects

curl -f URLFail with a non-zero exit code on HTTP errors

Sending data

-d '{"a":1}'Send a request body (implies POST)

-H "Content-Type: application/json"Required when sending JSON

-d @body.jsonRead the body from a file

-d "name=ada&role=dev"URL-encoded form data

--data-urlencode "q=a b&c"Encode a value that contains special characters

-F [email protected]Multipart upload — for file fields

-F "name=ada" -F [email protected]Mix fields and files in one form

-G -d "q=test"Send the data as a query string on a GET

Headers & authentication

-H "Accept: application/json"Add a request header — repeatable

-H "Authorization: Bearer TOKEN"Bearer token auth

-u user:passHTTP basic authentication

-u userPrompt for the password instead of typing it

-A "MyAgent/1.0"Set the User-Agent

-e https://example.comSet the Referer

-b "session=abc"Send cookies

-c cookies.txt -b cookies.txtSave and reuse a cookie jar

Downloading files

curl -O URLSave with the remote filename

curl -o name.zip URLSave under a name you choose

curl -OJ URLUse the filename from Content-Disposition

curl -C - -O URLResume an interrupted download

--limit-rate 500kCap the transfer speed

-o a.txt URL1 -o b.txt URL2Fetch several URLs in one command

Debugging & timing

-vVerbose — show the full request and response headers

--trace-ascii -Dump everything sent and received

-w "%{http_code}\n" -o /dev/null -sPrint only the status code

-w "%{time_total}\n"Print how long the request took

--max-time 10Give up after 10 seconds total

--connect-timeout 5Give up if the connection takes too long

--retry 3Retry on transient failures

-kSkip TLS certificate verification — development only

--resolve host:443:1.2.3.4Test a host against a specific IP

-x http://proxy:8080Route the request through a proxy

More cheat sheets

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