API quick-start

Prerequisites:

Basic terminal / command line skills
caddy and curl in your PATH

First start Caddy:

caddy start

Caddy is currently running idle (with a blank configuration). Give it a simple config with curl:

curl localhost:2019/load \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d @- << EOF
    {
        "apps": {
            "http": {
                "servers": {
                    "hello": {
                        "listen": [":2015"],
                        "routes": [
                            {
                                "handle": [{
                                    "handler": "static_response",
                                    "body": "Hello, world!"
                                }]
                            }
                        ]
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
EOF

Giving a POST body with Heredoc can be tedious, so if you prefer to use files, save the JSON to a file called caddy.json and then use this command instead:

curl localhost:2019/load \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d @caddy.json

Now load localhost:2015 in your browser or use curl:

curl localhost:2015
Hello, world!

We can also define multiple sites on different interfaces with this JSON:

{
	"apps": {
		"http": {
			"servers": {
				"hello": {
					"listen": [":2015"],
					"routes": [
						{
							"handle": [{
								"handler": "static_response",
								"body": "Hello, world!"
							}]
						}
					]
				},
				"bye": {
					"listen": [":2016"],
					"routes": [
						{
							"handle": [{
								"handler": "static_response",
								"body": "Goodbye, world!"
							}]
						}
					]
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Update your JSON then perform the API request again.

Try out your new "goodbye" endpoint in your browser or with curl to make sure it works:

curl localhost:2016
Goodbye, world!

When you are done with Caddy, make sure to stop it:

caddy stop

There's a lot more you can do with the API, including exporting configuration and making fine-grained changes to the config (as opposed to updating the whole thing). Be sure to read the full API tutorial to learn how!

API quick-start

Further reading