Running Imposter with the CLI

There are many ways to run Imposter. This section describes using the command line interface (CLI) tool.

Other ways to run Imposter

Standalone mock server

As a Lambda function in AWS - see Imposter AWS Lambda
As a Docker container - see Imposter Docker container
As a JAR file on the JVM - see Imposter JAR file

Embedded in tests

Embedded within your Java/Kotlin/Scala/JVM unit tests - see JVM bindings
Embedded within your JavaScript/Node.js unit tests - see JavaScript bindings

Within your CI/CD pipeline

Use the Imposter GitHub Actions to start and stop Imposter during your CI/CD pipeline.

CLI Features

Start mocks (imposter up)
Generate mock configuration from OpenAPI files (imposter scaffold)
Supports all plugins
Supports JVM and Docker engine types
Supports both 'core' and 'all' distributions

Installation

Prerequisites

You must have Docker or a JVM installed.

Homebrew

If you have Homebrew installed:

brew tap imposter-project/imposter
brew install imposter

Homebrew installation troubleshooting

If you previously installed Imposter using Homebrew from the deprecated tap gatehill/imposter, you may need to run the following command to update your Homebrew installation:

brew untap gatehill/imposter
brew tap imposter-project/imposter

Shell script

Or, use this one liner (macOS and Linux only):

curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/imposter-project/imposter-cli/main/install/install_imposter.sh | bash -

Other installation options

See the full Installation instructions for your system.

Example

$ cd /path/to/config
$ imposter up

Starting server on port 8080...
Parsing configuration file: someapi-config.yaml
...
Mock server is up and running

Different distributions

The previous command starts Imposter using the 'core' distribution, which includes common plugins only. To use the 'all' distribution, which includes all plugins, use the -t (engine type) flag:

$ imposter up -t docker-all

CLI usage

See full usage instructions on Imposter CLI.

What's next

Learn how to use Imposter with the Configuration guide.

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