Installing powhttp
How to install powhttp and route your scraper through it to capture real wire traffic, including true header order and TLS fingerprint, when debugging blocks.
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How to install powhttp and route your scraper through it to capture real wire traffic, including true header order and TLS fingerprint, when debugging blocks.
powhttp is a local HTTP debugging proxy built for request-based scraping. Unlike browser DevTools or a HAR export, it captures your script's real wire traffic, including the true header order and TLS fingerprint your HTTP client actually sent. That makes it the most reliable way to see why a request is being blocked.
Download powhttp and follow the install steps on their website: https://powhttp.com/
Once powhttp is running, it exposes a capture proxy at:
http://127.0.0.1:8080Point your script's HTTP client at this proxy. powhttp can chain to an upstream scraping proxy, so you can keep your normal proxy configured and add powhttp in front of it. Run your failing flow so the requests are captured.
powhttp captures details a HAR cannot, the real header order on the wire and the TLS ClientHello fingerprint. When a request "looks fine but still gets blocked," this is usually where you find the mismatch.
powhttp ships an MCP server that lets our Claude Code plugin (or Codex plugin) read your captured traffic and diagnose blocks for you.
In powhttp, open Settings → MCP Server and start it (there's an Auto-start on app launch option). It listens at http://localhost:8383/mcp.
Route your failing script through the capture proxy as described above and run it.
Ask the plugin to debug, for example: "Capture my script with powhttp and tell me why my request is blocked."
You can now inspect exactly what your client put on the wire and compare it to a real Chrome request. If you'd rather analyze a saved capture instead, see Recording HAR files.
For the full workflow — recording browser sessions, searching a capture to trace where dynamic tokens come from, diffing your request against the browser's until they match, replay, and routing through an external proxy — see the powhttp guide.
Get in touch: discord.gg/akamai
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