Introduction
Nimbus by Mazen Touati is a Laravel package that adds an in-browser API client to your application for inspecting and testing endpoints during development. Rather than switching to an external tool like Postman, Nimbus lives inside your Laravel project and automatically discovers your routes and validation rules. It’s NOT an API documentation generator like Swagger or Scribe—instead, it’s a developer-focused API playground designed to improve your iteration speed while building and testing APIs.
Key Features
Everything you need to test and iterate on your API during development
Automatic Route and Validation Discovery
Nimbus automatically discovers your API routes and builds interactive request schemas from your FormRequest classes, Spatie Data objects, inline validation rules, or an OpenAPI specification. No manual configuration needed—just define your routes and validation, and Nimbus picks them up.
Transaction Mode
Test destructive operations without affecting your data. Nimbus wraps requests in a database transaction and rolls back automatically after each request. You can safely test create, update, and delete operations during development.
User Impersonation
Act as different users to verify authorization policies across roles. Impersonate users by ID, bearer token, or basic auth to ensure your API correctly restricts access based on user permissions.
Additional Capabilities
Shareable request states let you share endpoint configurations (URL, method, headers, payload) with teammates via links. Value generators auto-populate request payloads with realistic test data that matches your validation rules. And when you use dd() in your code, Nimbus catches the output without breaking the UI.
Getting Started
Install Nimbus and start testing your API in minutes
Installation
composer require sunchayn/nimbus
php artisan vendor:publish --tag=nimbus-assets --tag=nimbus-configAfter installing, visit /nimbus in your browser to start working with your defined API routes. Nimbus will automatically discover your routes and present them in an intuitive interface.
When to Use Nimbus
Perfect for rapid API development and testing workflows
Nimbus shines when you’re actively building an API and need to quickly verify endpoints, test validation rules, and iterate on responses. It eliminates context switching between your IDE, Postman or similar tools, and your Laravel application. Everything lives in one place, with automatic discovery ensuring your playground stays in sync with your codebase.
Conclusion
Accelerate your Laravel API development with Nimbus
Nimbus is a powerful addition to any Laravel developer’s toolkit. By providing an in-browser API playground with automatic route and validation discovery, transaction mode for safe testing, and user impersonation for authorization verification, it streamlines the API development workflow significantly.
Key Takeaways:
- Test APIs without switching to external tools like Postman
- Automatic discovery of routes and validation rules
- Transaction mode for safe destructive operation testing
- User impersonation for authorization testing
- Shareable configurations and value generators for realistic test data
- Check the GitHub repository for documentation and updates
For more information, visit the Laravel News article or the Nimbus GitHub repository.
Nimbus is a Laravel package that adds an in-browser API client to your application for inspecting and testing endpoints during development.
Nimbus is NOT an API documentation generator. It’s a developer-focused API playground for testing and iteration, not customer-facing API documentation.
Transaction mode wraps requests in a database transaction and rolls back automatically, so you can test destructive operations without affecting your data.
Visit /nimbus in your browser to access the in-browser API playground.
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