mnml

I didn't want to install Postman on a new MacBook. So I started building something to send requests instead. Then I wanted a file tree next to it. Then a proper editor for the .http and .curl files. Somewhere in there the question flipped from "can I avoid this one install" to "if I can build this, why not build the tool that does everything I want, and just keep it open all the time?" That's what mnml is now. It's where I edit, where I run my Claude sessions, where I do git — and it manages mixr, my TUI DJ app, which is also its own standalone program. One window that's already open, instead of five apps I have to go find.

Copy a request as cURL from Chrome's Network tab. In mnml, click the paper-plane icon in the activity bar, hit Ctrl+V straight away, and press Enter. That's it — the paste is recognised as a curl and populates method, URL, headers and body in place, and Enter sends it. No import dialog, no re-typing a request you already have. After that, two things worth a look: the git graph, and mixr — my TUI DJ app running as a managed pane inside the editor, which is the clearest example of what "keep it open all the time" ends up meaning.

The input layer is pluggable at the architecture level rather than bolted on. Every keypress goes through a Box<dyn InputHandler> that emits a small closed set of edit operations, all funnelled through one Editor::apply chokepoint — and the editor, buffer and render layers never branch on which handler is active. Only the statusline's mode chip and the cursor-shape code know the mode exists. The payoff is that vim mode and standard mode are the same editor, not one wearing the other as a compatibility skin. Adding a feature means registering a command or an edit-op variant, not threading a conditional through every layer — which is why the HTTP client, a file manager, a git UI and AI panes could all land as panes without the editor learning about any of them.

Database integration is in progress. After that, deeper GitHub support — issues, pull requests, Actions, and a dashboard over them — so the parts of a workday that currently pull me into a browser stop doing that. The larger one is a client/server split: letting panes outlive the process, so sessions survive a disconnect or a restart instead of being rebuilt by hand.