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3. Capturing Exchanges

Now that we have created a collection, we can start capturing exchanges. Exchanges are HTTP request-response pairs, where the request is sent to a server and the response is received. Storing the response aswell as the request allows API Parrot to identify patterns in the data

Opening the Capture Manager​

To open the Capture Manager, click the `Capture requests' button in the collection tab to the collection you want to capture requests / exchanges for.

Capture Exchanges Button

Capture Manager Overview​

This will open the Capture Manager, from here you can:

  • Toggle the capture on and off with the switch at the top.
  • Launch a new chrome window pre-configured to send exchanges to API Parrot.
  • Launch a new chrome incognito window pre-configured to send exchanges to API Parrot.
  • View the Proxy URL & the CA fingerprint for the API Parrot proxy, in case you need to configure a different browser or tool to send exchanges to API Parrot.

For this tutorial, we will click the Launch Chrome Incognito button and then turn on the capture switch.

info

With version 0.3.0, you can customize the browser that is launched by API Parrot. This can be done in the Settings > Capture > Launch Browser Commands settings. You can read more about this in the Capture with Proxy tutorial.

Request Manager

Capturing the Exchanges​

Now that the capture is on, any exchanges made in the chrome incognito window will be captured by API Parrot.

For this tutorial, I will navigate to the USPS ZIP Code Lookup page https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm?citybyzipcode and search for the ZIP code 10001.

tip

It is wise to try to limit the exchanges you capture to avoid unnecessary exchanges. For this tutorial, we went directly to the https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm?citybyzipcode page to avoid capturing unnecessary exchanges navigating to the page. For example, if you where to first find the website on google, the google search request would also be captured, which is not necessary and would clutter the collection.

USPS Capture Done

The exchanges are now captured and we disable the capture switch and close the Capture Manager.