HTTP Client Input

Fetches data from an HTTP endpoint. Supports one-shot or periodic polling.

How it works

1. Sends an HTTP request (GET/POST/PUT) to the configured URL.
2. Without scrape_interval_seconds: performs a one-shot fetch and completes.
3. With scrape_interval_seconds: polls at the given interval until shutdown.
4. Supports Basic and Bearer auth, custom headers, request body, and gzip decompression.
5. Namespace convention: http.{url_host}.

Configuration

data_sources:
  source:
    HttpClient:
      url: "https://api.example.com/data"
      method: GET
      scrape_interval_seconds: 60
      auth:
        strategy: bearer
        token: "my-token"
      headers:
        Accept: application/json

Configuration variables

Variable	Default	Description
url	(required)	HTTP endpoint URL
method	GET	HTTP method (GET, POST, PUT)
headers		Map of additional request headers
body		Request body string
auth.strategy		basic or bearer
auth.user / auth.password		Credentials for basic auth
auth.token		Token for bearer auth
scrape_interval_seconds		Polling interval; omit for one-shot
scrape_timeout_seconds	5	Request timeout
format	json	Data format

Authentication

Authentication is optional and depends on the upstream endpoint. For security best practices, we strongly advise against storing authentication values in skippr.yml. Use environment variable interpolation instead: replace the relevant auth field with your own ${ENV_VAR} reference.

The relevant part of skippr.yml looks like this:

data_sources:
  source:
    HttpClient:
      auth_strategy: bearer
      auth_token: "${HTTP_CLIENT_AUTH_TOKEN}"

Set the env var before running skipprd:

macOS / Linux

export HTTP_CLIENT_AUTH_TOKEN="your-token"

Windows PowerShell

$env:HTTP_CLIENT_AUTH_TOKEN = "your-token"

Windows Command Prompt

set HTTP_CLIENT_AUTH_TOKEN=your-token

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
401 or 403 responses	Verify credentials, bearer tokens, and any required request headers.
timeouts or empty responses	Check the endpoint URL, method, timeout settings, and whether the service is rate limiting requests.