2. Getting Started¶

Dependency¶

// build.gradle.kts
dependencies {
    implementation(project(":zlink-http-client-kotlin"))
}

Pulls in kotlinx-coroutines-jdk8 and jackson-module-kotlin (data class DTO serialization) as transitive dependencies.

import systems.zlink.httpclient.kotlin.*
import systems.zlink.httpclient.ZLinkHttpClient

First Request¶

zlinkHttpClient("http://127.0.0.1:18080").use { client ->
    val player = client.get("/players/7281").await<PlayerProfile>()
    println(player.body().name)
}

zlinkHttpClient(baseUrl) { ... } applies the DSL block to a fluent builder to create the client.
The client is reusable and thread-safe. Since it's AutoCloseable, managing its lifetime with use { ... } cleans up the internal connection pool and executor.
await<T>() is a reified extension that suspends all the way to a typed JSON response.

DTO¶

data classes are used directly as request/response bodies.

data class CreateGameReq(val mode: String)
data class CreateGameRes(val id: String, val ranked: Boolean)

One-Line Request¶

suspend fun createGame(): CreateGameRes =
    zlinkHttpClient("https://game-api.example.internal").use { client ->
        client.post("/games").body(CreateGameReq("ranked-match-0611")).fetch()
    }

fetch<T>() is a suspend extension that directly returns the typed body (a convenience for await<T>().body()).

Test · CLI¶

Outside a coroutine (tests, main), wrap the call in runBlocking.

fun main() = runBlocking {
    zlinkHttpClient("http://127.0.0.1:18080").use { client ->
        val board = client.get("/leaderboard").fetch<Leaderboard>()
        println(board)
    }
}

Next: Client Configuration →