shrink-har

Shrink-HAR is a command line utility that reduces the size of saved HTTP Archive files by removing the response body.

Caution This tool is destructive. If you're using HAR files to debug API responses, or any other payload, then this tool isn't for you. It is only useful if your debugging needs are limited to HTTP request/response headers thereby rendering the response bodies superfluous.

Overview

HTTP Archive files can be large when they contain multiple response bodies. I wrote this tool when I needed to retain dozens of HAR files but was only interested in HTTP headers. The response bodies (images, CSS, Javascript, API JSON, etc) were superfluous to my needs but were the majority of the file sizes.

Shrink-HAR will:

• Analyse HAR files and report on potential savings.
• Optionally backup existing HAR files to a ZIP file before shrinking them.
• Shrink HAR files by stripping them, permanently, of all the response bodies.

Installation

Install globally via npm using:

npm install -g shrink-har

Usage

By default, running shrink-har without any options will result in an analysis of *.har files in the current directory:

shrink-har

This behaviour can be modified via the following options.

--file

--file <filespec>

Specifies a filename or, using wildcards, a file specification.

Default: *.har

e.g.

shrink-har --file www.amazon.co.uk.har

-or-

shrink-har --file *amazon*.har

--directory

--directory <path>

Specifies the target directory.

Default: . (current working directory)

e.g.

shrink-har --directory ~/Downloads/

--commit

--commit

Commit changes to files. If absent only an analysis is performed. A confirmation prompt is also shown, which can be modified with --yes.

Default: false

e.g.

shrink-har --commit

--yes

--yes

Automatically answer "yes" to confirmation prompts. Use with --commit.

Default: false

e.g.

shrink-har --commit --yes

--backup

--backup

Backup all target .har files into a single .zip file before committing changes.

Default: false

e.g.

shrink-har --commit --backup

--verbose

--verbose

Enables verbose output.

Default: false

e.g.

shrink-har --verbose

--debug

--debug

Enables debugging output.

Default: false

e.g.

shrink-har --debug

--no-color

--no-color

Switches off colour output.

--version

--version

Display version number.

--help

--help

Displays help screen.

Examples

Analyse current directory

Analyse *.har in the current directory:

shrink-har

Verbose output of current directory's analysis

Analyse *.har in the current directory displaying verbose output

shrink-har --verbose

Shrink all HAR files in current directory (interactive)

Shrink *.har in the current directory, with a confirmation prompt

shrink-har --commit

Backup and Shrink all HAR files in current directory (silent)

Shrink *.har in the current directory, with no prompts, after making a backup

shrink-har --commit --yes --backup

Shrink specific file in specific directory (interactive)

Shrink the file www.example.com.har in ./Downloads after a confirmation prompt

shrink-har --file www.example.com.har --directory ./Downloads --commit

Shrink all HAR files in specific directory without backing up (silent)

Shrink *.har in ./Downloads/HARFiles/ without backing up and with no prompt

Warning, this command permanently removes data silently

shrink-har --directory ./Downloads/HARFiles/ --commit --yes

Change Log

The Change Log can be found here