imitatus

Imitatus

A sophisticated mock HTTP server for development and testing. Imitatus (Latin for "imitation") provides a powerful way to simulate HTTP services with precision and flexibility.

Features

• 🔐 Token-based authentication system
• 🎯 Full HTTP method coverage (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, HEAD, OPTIONS, TRACE, CONNECT)
• 💾 Intelligent in-memory state management
• 📊 Request logging and analytics
• 🛡️ CORS support out of the box
• 🧪 Ready-to-use test collection
• ⚡ Zero external dependencies

Quick Start

# Install
git clone https://github.com/serkanaltuntas/imitatus.git
cd imitatus
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Run
python -m imitatus.server --port 8000

Basic Usage

1. Start the server:

python -m imitatus.server

1. Authenticate:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/api/login \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"username": "admin", "password": "password"}'

1. Make requests:

curl http://localhost:8000/api/items \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your-token-here"

API Overview

Authentication

• POST /api/login: Get authentication token

{
  "username": "admin",
  "password": "password"
}

Core Endpoints

• GET /api/items: List all items
• POST /api/items: Create item
• GET /api/items/{id}: Get specific item
• PUT /api/items/{id}: Full update
• PATCH /api/items/{id}: Partial update
• DELETE /api/items/{id}: Delete item

System Endpoints

• GET /debug/vars: System state and metrics
• OPTIONS /api/items: Available methods and API info

Dependencies

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• pip

Production

Imitatus is designed to have zero production dependencies. It uses only Python's standard library components for all core functionality. This design choice provides several benefits:

• 🔒 Enhanced security with no third-party dependency risks
• ⚡ Fast and lightweight installation
• 🎯 No version conflicts with other packages
• 📦 Maximum portability across Python environments

Development

For development and testing, we use several high-quality tools:

# Install development dependencies
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

# Install testing dependencies
pip install -r requirements-test.txt

See requirements-dev.txt and requirements-test.txt for the complete list of development and testing dependencies.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guidelines for details.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Built with precision by Serkan Altuntas

Support

• Submit issues via GitHub
• Review documentation