Comparing exchanges

Fluxzy Desktop includes a built-in diff viewer to compare two HTTP exchanges side by side. This feature is useful for identifying differences between similar requests, comparing responses before and after a change, or debugging API behavior across different environments.

The diff viewer uses Monaco Editor (the same editor that powers VS Code) to provide a familiar and powerful comparison experience.

To compare two exchanges:

1. In the exchange table, select exactly two exchanges:

   • Click the first exchange to select it
   • Hold Ctrl (or Cmd on macOS) and click the second exchange

2. Once two exchanges are selected, click the diff button in the toolbar

The diff viewer opens in a full-screen modal showing both exchanges side by side.

The diff viewer provides several options to customize the comparison:

Option	Description
Include Connection Info	Include connection metadata (IP addresses, TLS info) in the comparison
Order Headers	Sort headers alphabetically before comparing, useful when header order varies
Exclude Cookies	Remove cookie headers from the comparison to focus on other differences
Ignore Headers	Comma-separated list of header names to exclude (e.g., Date, X-Request-Id)
Max Body Length	Maximum number of bytes to include from the response body (default: 65536)

Options are applied automatically as you change them (with a small debounce delay). You can also click Refresh to manually reload the diff.

The diff viewer displays:

• Left panel: The first selected exchange (shown as "LEFT")
• Right panel: The second selected exchange (shown as "RIGHT")
• Line highlighting: Added lines are highlighted in green, removed lines in red
• Statistics: The footer shows the count of added and removed lines

When debugging rule modifications:

1. Capture the original request
2. Apply your rule changes
3. Capture the modified request
4. Compare both to verify the changes

When testing API consistency:

1. Capture response from production
2. Capture response from staging/development
3. Compare to identify differences

When investigating flaky behavior:

1. Capture a successful request/response
2. Capture a failing request/response
3. Compare to identify what changed

• Use Order Headers when comparing exchanges where header order is not significant
• Use Ignore Headers to filter out headers that change on every request (like timestamps or request IDs)
• Reduce Max Body Length when comparing large responses to focus on the beginning of the content
• Use Ctrl+Click (or Cmd+Click) to select multiple exchanges efficiently