mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
wget -O ~/.local/bin/httptoolkit \
  "https://git.shihaam.dev/shihaam/httptoolkit/releases/download/$(curl -sD - -o /dev/null "https://git.shihaam.dev/shihaam/httptoolkit/releases/latest" | grep -oP '(?<=tag/)[^"\r\n]+')/httptoolkit"
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/httptoolkit

Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH (most distros do this already):

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc

Run as a systemd user service

Create the unit:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/httptoolkit.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=HTTP Toolkit (self-hosted)
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=%h/.local/bin/httptoolkit --port 8080 --no-open
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

Start it:

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user start httptoolkit

Then open http://localhost:8080.

Managing the service

systemctl --user status httptoolkit     # check it's running
systemctl --user restart httptoolkit
systemctl --user stop httptoolkit
journalctl --user -u httptoolkit -f     # follow logs

Start it automatically at login:

systemctl --user enable httptoolkit

To keep it running when you're not logged in (e.g. on a headless box), enable lingering for your user:

loginctl enable-linger "$USER"

Updating

Re-run the download command above, then restart the service:

systemctl --user restart httptoolkit

Options

  -p, --port <port>          Port to serve the web UI on (default: 8080)
      --server-port <port>   HTK management API port (default: 45457)
      --mockttp-port <port>  Mockttp admin port (default: 45456)
      --no-open              Don't open a browser automatically
  -h, --help                 Show this help

--no-open matters for the service: without it the binary tries to launch a browser on start.

Building from source

Requires Docker. The build runs in a container that clones upstream, applies the patches in patches/ and the overlay in overlay/, then compiles the binary:

docker compose run --build --rm release-httptoolkit

The result lands in builds/httptoolkit.