Request Body

The Body tab lets you configure the request payload. Samvad supports five body modes to cover every API use case.

Body Modes

JSON

The most common mode for modern REST APIs. The editor uses Monaco with full JSON syntax highlighting and validation.

{
  "name": "Alice",
  "email": "alice@example.com",
  "role": "admin"
}

The Content-Type: application/json header is automatically added.

Tips:

• Use Cmd+Shift+F / Ctrl+Shift+F to auto-format JSON
• JSON errors are highlighted inline
• Reference environment variables: "token": "{{API_TOKEN}}"

Raw

Sends the body exactly as typed. You can set any Content-Type manually in the Headers tab.

Use this for:

• XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<user>
  <name>Alice</name>
  <email>alice@example.com</email>
</user>

• GraphQL queries

query {
  user(id: "1") {
    name
    email
  }
}

• Plain text

Form Data (URL Encoded)

Sends key-value pairs encoded in the URL query string format. This is the default encoding for HTML <form> submissions.

Add rows with + and toggle each row enabled/disabled with the checkbox.

name=Alice&email=alice%40example.com&role=admin

The Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded header is automatically added.

Multipart

Used for file uploads. Supports mixed text fields and file attachments in a single request.

To upload a file:

1. Select Multipart mode
2. Click Add File
3. Pick a file from the native file dialog
4. Add any additional text fields

Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----FormBoundary

------FormBoundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="username"

alice
------FormBoundary
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="avatar"; filename="photo.png"
Content-Type: image/png

<binary data>
------FormBoundary--

Environment Variables in Body

You can use {{VARIABLE_NAME}} in any body field and it will be substituted with the value from the active environment at send time.

{
  "api_key": "{{API_KEY}}",
  "user_id": "{{USER_ID}}"
}

See Environments for setup instructions.