Breakpoints

Pause a matching request or response, edit it, then execute it, abort it or give yourself more time.

Mac iPhone and iPad

A breakpoint holds a matching exchange in WireLens before it continues. You can pause the request before it reaches the server, the response before it reaches the app, or both, and change anything about it while it waits.

Add a breakpoint#

From a flow. Select a request and choose Breakpoint This Request… (⌥⌘B on the Mac). WireLens fills in the URL pattern and method for you.
From Tools. Open Tools ▸ Breakpoints, add a rule, and set its URL pattern, method and phases.

Each rule decides:

Setting	What it does
URL pattern	Which requests the rule matches. Wildcards and regular expressions both work. A blank pattern is refused, because it would match everything.
Method	Limit the rule to `GET`, `POST` and so on, or match any method.
Scope	Optionally narrow further, for example to one GraphQL operation name.
Request	Pause before the request leaves for the server.
Response	Pause after the server answers, before the app sees it.
Timeout	How long WireLens waits for you before applying the rule's timeout policy.

Breakpoints also have a master switch. While it is off, no breakpoint rule fires, which is the quick way to stop pausing without deleting your rules.

When a breakpoint fires#

On the Mac, paused exchanges collect in Waiting Traffic (⇧⌘B). On iPhone they appear under Tools ▸ Breakpoints. Open one to edit it:

Request phase: URL, method, headers, query and body. Query parameters and headers can be edited as a table, and the URL field accepts a pasted curl command.
Response phase: status, headers and body.

Then choose what happens next:

Action	Result
Execute	Sends your edited version on. That is exactly what the server or the app receives.
Abort	Fails the exchange on purpose. Capture marks it as aborted at a breakpoint, never as a server status.
+1 min	Extends the wait so you can keep editing.

While the editor is open WireLens keeps the exchange alive, so a long edit does not time out underneath you.

What Capture records#

Capture shows what actually went over the wire. When you edit a paused body, the recorded body is replaced with your edit, so the flow never shows a payload the app did not receive.

Limits worth knowing#

The host must be decrypted for a breakpoint to see an HTTPS request. See SSL Proxying.
Streaming request bodies, such as client-streaming gRPC calls, are relayed as they arrive, so they cannot be paused in the request phase. Their responses still can.
The free plan includes one breakpoint rule. Pro removes the limit.

From the command line#

bash

wirelens rules breakpoint --host api.example.com --path /v2/cart
wirelens rules list
wirelens rules rm <id>

The MCP tool is add_breakpoint. Resolving a paused exchange always happens in the app, so an agent never releases one on your behalf.

Something here is unclear, or wrong for your setup? Contact support or write to support@wirelens.app.