WebSocat – Like Netcat for WebSockets

I'm pleased with this tool. I couldn't find any other simple cli tool that just reads and writes to WebSockets. Maybe just websocketd: https://github.com/joewalnes/websocketd

I've used websocat for debugging web projects and remote-controlling OBS.

I also have a livereload script that looks something like:

  mkfifo $pipe
  websocat --server-mode $port 0< $pipe 2> /dev/null &
  while sleep 1; do :; done > $pipe &

and a browser userscript like:

  // @match localhost

  let ws = new WebSocket(`ws://localhost:${port}`)
  ws.onmessage = () => location.reload()

so during development I can reload the browser when files change:

  find . | entr -s 'echo ping > $pipe'

I've used this script for livereloading PDFs and Markdown previews, not just typical web dev. It's a bit ugly around the edges, but I like how customizable and portable it is between projects and browsers.

I've never used websocat for advanced features, but I'm sure it's quite capable.