curl Cheatsheet

A practical curl cheatsheet: GET/POST with data and headers, authentication, file downloads, and request debugging — copy-ready with editable placeholders for the URL, method, and payload.

Explain a command

Basics

GET a URL
curl
Follow redirects
curl -L
Silent (no progress), still show errors
curl -sS
Download to a named file
curl -o
Download keeping the remote filename
curl -OL

Methods & data

POST JSON
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d ''
PUT with data
curl -X PUT -d ''
DELETE a resource
curl -X DELETE
POST a form / upload a file
curl -F =@
POST url-encoded fields
curl -d =

Headers & auth

Send a custom header
curl -H ": "
Bearer token auth
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer "
Basic auth
curl -u :

Debug & inspect

Headers only (HEAD request)
curl -I
Verbose (see request + TLS handshake)
curl -v
Print status code and total time
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code} %{time_total}s\n'
Skip TLS certificate verificationdestructive
curl -k
Disables cert checking — for local/self-signed only, never in production.
Override DNS for a host
curl --resolve ::

18 commands. Copy-ready with editable placeholders — everything runs in your browser, nothing is sent to a server.