This program was designed to replace the curl that is no longer shipped with Microsoft's dotnet core docker containers. Removing that kept breaking all of my upgraded containers, and I really wanted curl back for healthchecks without having to apt install and apt clean and cleaning out the cache. So I built a simple curl that handled the healthcheck calls I was doing. I have since started expanding it to meet more needs of the original curl, while remaining golang based.

curl -D - -o - https://google.com
curl -D /dev/null -o /dev/null https://google.not.valid.haha
curl https://google.com
curl https://my.local.test:443 -k

You can manually download a binary release for Linux, MacOS, Windows or FreeBSD from the releases page.

Please notice latest will install the dev version:

go install -ldflags="-s -w" -v github.com/cdwiegand/go-curling@latest

COPY --from=cdwiegand/go-curling:latest /bin/curl /usr/bin/curl
# OR COPY --from=ghcr.io/cdwiegand/go-curling:latest /bin/curl /usr/bin/curl
HEALTHCHECK CMD curl -s http://localhost:80

This program only attempts to support HTTP/HTTPS protocols - others like IMAP, SMTP, RTMP, etc. are not supported.

Not all HTTP-related functionality is supported either, but normal calls like GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc. are implemented for the vast majority of use cases, but one difference that makes this not 100% drop-in would be that the --cookie-jar/-c is both read and write (and -b/--cookie is "read only"). So normally if you want to use cookies to login a session, just use --cookie-jar/-c in each call - no need to specify --cookie/-b unless you want to specify one or more "starting" cookie values.

• Globbing is NOT supported
• Environment variable interpolation ("Variables" in the curl man page) is not supported
• Command line arguments not listed as supported are not supported
• You cannot merge "short form" arguments directly with their values, e.g.: curl -darbitrary https://... is not supported, you must use curl -d arbitrary https://...
• no-xxx form arguments are generally not recognized, unless documented by default their positive version being true (e.g. --no-fail doesn't exist as --fail is not a default value, but --no-ca-native does exist because by default we load the native CA certifications from the underlying OS and so --ca-native doesn't exist to turn "on")
• go-curling does not implement global vs scoped arguments - -: / --next are not supported

Note that one thing that is now supported is that if you specify multiple URLs, you can specify multiple -o or -D values and go-curling will honor that, but if you specify more URLs than you have specified outputs, the extra URLs will be processed with the default value for the given flag (content output to stdout).

• --version is intended to return a build date/version header, and is not intended for parsing by programs. It will return immediately and not process any requests.
• --request / -X allows you to specify an explicit HTTP verb, some parameters will also inherently override it (ex: -I/--head will set it to HEAD).
• --head / -I will suppress content output and will emit the headers to the "content" output location. This means that --head -o /tmp/1 is the same as -D /tmp/1 -o /dev/null.
• --dump-header / -H will emit the HTTP response headers (if set to -, they will appear BEFORE the content output).
• --output {file path or -} redirects the content output to another location than stdout.
• --stderr {file path or -} will emit errors to the given location.
• --user-agent {value} will send the given user agent via HTTP instead of the default.
• --insecure / -K will ignore invalid HTTPS certificates.
• --fail / -f will suppress outputs ONLY ON FAILURE and just return a failure error code (non-zero); success will still output by default.
• --silent / -s will not emit any output regardless of success or failure.
• --show-error / -S will show error info even if silent/fail modes on.
• --include / -i will include emit returned headers and output to the output path (effectively -D - -o -, or -D file1 -o file1).
• --user allows you to specify a Basic HTTP username:password style authentication header.
• --referer specifies the Referer HTTP header.
• --header / -H (repeatable) allows you to specify any valid HTTP header, and will override defaults set by other parameters (such as -d or --form).
• --cookie / -b (repeatable) allows you to specify an HTTP cookie (as a string, or as a file containing the cookie definition.
• --cookie-jar / -c allows you to store HTTP cookies for multiple invocations.
• --post301, --post302, and --post303 retain POST as the method, along with any file/data uploads on those status codes. Normally we will drop to GET and also drop any data/file arguments.
• --max-redirs limits the number of redirections to process to 50 by default. Pass -1, 0, or any negative number to allow unlimited redirects.
• --proto-default specifies the default protocol for new URLs (default: http)
• --oauth2-bearer specifies an OAuth2 Authorization header (Bearer: xxx) to pass to the first request.
• --location-trusted permits redirects to retain authorization headers (basic auth or oauth2 bearer)

• The --data* parameters will by default use POST as the HTTP verb and application/x-www-form-urlencoded as the content type (unless you specify a Content-Type header via -H):
• • Using --data name=value will send name as a raw (already URL encoded) value value.
• • Using --data name=@value will send name as a raw (already URL encoded) value read from the file value.
• • Using --data-binary name=value will send name as a raw (already URL encoded) value value.
• • Using --data-binary name=@value will send name as a raw (already URL encoded) value read from the file value.
• • Using --data-urlencoded name=value will send name as a to-be URL encoded value value.
• • Using --data-urlencoded name=@value will send name as a to-be URL encoded value read from the file value.
• • Using --data-raw name=value will send name as a raw (already URL encoded) value value even if it starts with @!
• The --form parameter will by default use POST as the HTTP verb and multipart/form-data as the content type (unless you specify a Content-Type header via -H - strongly discouraged):
• • Using --form name=value will send a field name with value value.
• • Using --form name=<value will send a field name with value read from value.
• • Using --form name=@value will send a file name with contents read from value.
• The --upload parameter will by default use PUT as the HTTP verb and if possible detect the MIME type using the file extension, or use application/octet-stream as the content type (unless you specify a Content-Type header via -H):
• • Using --upload value will send the contents of the value file as the entire body.

• 6: Response present, but a status code >= 400 (e.g. failing) was returned
• 7: No response, but an error was thrown
• 8: Invalid/missing URL
• 9: Unable to read upload file
• 10: Unable to write output file (cookies or output)
• 11: Unable to write to stdout/stderr
• 249: No such host or invalid scheme
• 250: Invalid/missing url

Tests are now present in the code - run go test -v ./... to run them. Most test files contain both

go-curling is licensed under the MIT License. Previously it was licensed under the LGPL - as I am the sole author prior to this change, I approve the change.

Lots of credit to the original authors of curl, as well as to @emacampolo for a great JSON comparator class, @ericbsantana for gurl that inspired me to do more with a simple project, and everyone else who has posted golang code on the web for the rest of us to learn from!

• --abstract-unix-socket
• --alt-svc
• --anyauth
• --aws-sigv4
• --cert-status
• --cert-type
• --ciphers
• --connect-timeout
• --connect-to
• -C/--continue-at
• --create-dirs
• --create-file-mode
• --crlf
• --crlfile
• --curves
• --delegation
• --digest
• -q/--disable
• --disallow-username-in-url
• --dns-interface
• --dns-ipv4-addr
• --dns-ipv6-addr
• --dns-servers
• --doh-cert-status
• --doh-insecure
• --doh-url
• --ech
• --egd-file
• --engine
• --etag-compare
• --etag-save
• --false-start
• --form-escape
• -g/--globoff
• --happy-eyeballs-timeout-ms
• --haproxy-clientip
• --haproxy-protocol
• --hsts
• --http0.9
• -0/--http1.0
• --http1.1
• --http2
• --http2-prior-knowledge
• --http3
• --http3-only
• --ignore-content-length
• --interface
• --ipfs-gateway
• -4/--ipv4
• -6/--ipv6
• --keepalive-time
• --key-type
• --krb
• --libcurl
• --limit-rate
• --local-port
• -M/--manual
• --max-filesize
• -m/--max-time
• --metalink
• --negotiate
• -n/--netrc
• --netrc-file
• --netrc-optional
• -:/--next
• --no-alpn
• -N/--no-buffer
• --no-clobber
• --no-npn
• --no-progress-meter
• --no-sessionid
• --ntlm
• --output-dir
• -Z/--parallel
• --parallel-immediate
• --parallel-max
• --path-as-is go-curling does not modify given URL(s)
• --pinnedpubkey
• -#/--progress-bar
• -x/--proxy
• -r/--range
• --rate
• --raw
• -J/--remote-header-name
• -O/--remote-name
• --remote-name-all
• -R/--remote-time
• --remove-on-error
• --request-target
• --resolve
• --retry-all-errors
• --retry-connrefused
• --retry-max-time
• --service-name
• -Y/--speed-limit
• -y/--speed-time
• --ssl
• --ssl-allow-beast
• --ssl-auto-client-cert
• --ssl-no-revoke
• --ssl-reqd
• --ssl-revoke-best-effort
• -2/--sslv2
• -3/--sslv3
• --styled-output
• --tcp-fastopen
• --tcp-nodelay Need to add no-tcp-nodelay
• -z/--time-cond
• --tls13-ciphers
• --tlsauthtype
• --tlspassword
• --tlsuser
• --tr-encoding
• --trace
• --trace-ascii
• --trace-config
• --trace-ids
• --trace-time
• --unix-socket
• --url-query
• --variable
• -w/--write-out
• --xattr

These are not applicable because go-curling does not support proxies yet:

• --no-proxy
• --preproxy
• --proxy-anyauth
• --proxy-basic
• --proxy-ca-native
• --proxy-cacert
• --proxy-capath
• --proxy-cert
• --proxy-cert-type
• --proxy-ciphers
• --proxy-crlfile
• --proxy-digest
• --proxy-header
• --proxy-http2
• --proxy-insecure
• --proxy-key
• --proxy-key-type
• --proxy-negotiate
• --proxy-ntlm
• --proxy-pass
• --proxy-pinnedpubkey
• --proxy-service-name
• --proxy-ssl-allow-beast
• --proxy-ssl-auto-client-cert
• --proxy-tls13-ciphers
• --proxy-tlsauthtype
• --proxy-tlspassword
• --proxy-tlsuser
• --proxy-tlsv1
• --socks4
• --socks4a
• --socks5
• --socks5-basic
• --socks5-gssapi
• --socks5-gssapi-nec
• --socks5-gssapi-service
• --socks5-hostname

These are not applicable because they are only for protocols other than HTTP/S or they are deprecated in upstream curl:

• -a/--append
• --compressed-ssh
• -q/--disable
• --disable-eprt/--no-eprt
• --eprt
• --disable-epsv,--no-epsv
• --epsv
• --ftp-account
• --ftp-alternative-to-user
• --ftp-create-dirs
• --ftp-method
• --ftp-pasv
• -P/--ftp-port
• --ftp-pret
• --ftp-skip-pasv-ip
• --ftp-ssl-ccc
• --ftp-ssl-ccc-mode
• --ftp-ssl-control
• --hostpubmd5
• --hostpubsha256
• -l/--list-only
• --login-options
• --mail-auth
• --mail-from
• --mail-rcpt
• --mail-rcpt-allowfails
• --ntlm-wb Deprecated in curl
• --proto
• --proto-redir
• -x/--proxy
• --pubkey
• -Q/--quote
• --random-file Deprecated in curl
• --sasl-authzid
• --sasl-ir
• -t/--telnet-option
• --tftp-blksize
• --tftp-no-options
• -B/--use-ascii