Headless Mode

Overview

Reqline can run in headless mode — no desktop window, just the MCP server communicating over stdio. This is useful for CI pipelines, automated testing, and environments without a display.

Starting headless mode

From the Reqline project directory:

pnpm start:mcp

This builds the app and launches Electron with the --mcp-stdio flag. The MCP server communicates over standard input/output using the MCP stdio transport.

Use cases

CI/CD integration

Use headless mode in CI pipelines to:

• Execute saved API requests as part of your test suite
• Seed test data via collections
• Verify API responses in automated workflows

AI agent integration via stdio

Some AI clients support MCP over stdio. Configure them to launch Reqline:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reqline": {
      "command": "pnpm",
      "args": ["start:mcp"],
      "cwd": "/path/to/reqline"
    }
  }
}

The AI client spawns the process and communicates via stdin/stdout.

Smoke testing

Run a full smoke test against the running desktop app:

pnpm smoke:mcp:real

This spawns the headless MCP server and verifies it can:

1. Discover the live desktop app’s local API
2. Create and manage collections, requests, and environments
3. Execute requests against the desktop app’s endpoints
4. Verify history tracking
5. Clean up all test data

Data storage

Headless mode uses the same data store as the desktop app (reqline-data.json in the user data directory). Changes made in headless mode are visible when you next open the desktop app, and vice versa.

Environment variables

The same configuration variables apply:

Variable	Default	Description
REQLINE_MCP_PORT	3218	MCP HTTP port (not used in stdio mode)
REQLINE_LOCAL_API_PORT	3217	Local API port
REQLINE_LOCAL_API_TOKEN	(none)	Optional auth token