Getting Started

Let’s run your first request. Two minutes, start to finish.

First, make sure rq is installed — grab the CLI and/or VS Code extension from Installation.

1. Write a request

Create a file called getting-started.rq and add one line:

rq hello("https://httpbin.org/get");

That’s a GET request named hello. The string is the URL. Done.

2. Run it

Open the rq Request Explorer in VS Code, find hello, and hit Run (the play icon). If you don’t see it, click Refresh — the explorer picks up new requests on reload.

Running the hello request from the rq Explorer

3. Read the response

The viewer shows you the status, response time, headers, and body — JSON gets formatted automatically.

Showing the hello request response in the rq Explorer

httpbin.org/get echoes your request back, so it’s a handy playground while you’re learning. Re-run it as much as you like.

Where to next

Advanced Example — ready for more? Build a single request up into a real API suite, step by step.
AI-Assisted Authoring — let Copilot write the .rq files for you, checked against rq’s parser and linter.
Language Definition — headers, bodies, variables, auth, and everything else the .rq syntax can do.
VS Code Extension — environments, the request explorer, and other editor features.
CLI — prefer the terminal? Run the same file from the command line.

rq is in preview, so the UI may shift around — but the core stays the same: define requests in .rq files, run them from VS Code or the CLI.