Okay, so today I wanted to mess around with Charles Proxy and see if I could get it working with a local app, specifically something related to “central bucks”. I’ve used Charles before, but it’s been a while, so I figured I’d document the process in case I forget… or if it helps someone else out there.
First thing I did was fire up Charles. It’s pretty straightforward, you know, just open the application. My version is probably a little outdated, but it still does the trick.
Getting Started with Recording
Next, I needed to make sure Charles was actually recording traffic. Usually, it starts recording automatically, but I always double-check. You can see a little red recording button, and if it’s on, you’re good to go. If not just click it to start the recording.
Then, I opened up the application I was interested in, the one related to “central bucks”. I won’t name names, but you can use whatever you want to test this. I wanted to inspect the network calls, so I started interacting with the app – you know, clicking around, maybe making a fake purchase or whatever, just to generate some traffic.
Filtering the Noise
Now, Charles captures EVERYTHING. Which is great, but it can also be a pain. My screen was instantly flooded with requests from all sorts of things running on my machine. So, the next step was filtering. I used the “Filter” field in Charles to narrow down the traffic to just what I cared about. I typed in part of the URL I expected to see from my “central bucks” app, something related to the domain it uses.
Once I applied the filter, things got much cleaner. I could actually see the requests and responses related to the app’s functionality, and I didn’t have to wade through a bunch of unrelated junk.
Inspecting the Requests
With the filter on, I could start digging into the actual requests. I clicked on a few of them, and Charles shows you all the details: headers, the request body (if there is one), the response code, the response body, everything. I can check the data that is send and received.
What I Actually Found (My “A-Ha!” Moment)
I was specifically interested in a particular API call related to checking some balance, this is my “central bucks” thing. And, guess what? I found it! By looking at the request body and the corresponding response, I could see exactly how the app was sending the data and what it was getting back. This is exactly what I needed.I reviewed all the parameters carefully. I think I found an interesting point.
So, yeah, that’s pretty much it. Charles is super useful for this kind of thing. It lets you see under the hood of your apps and understand how they’re communicating with their servers.
I’ve completed the goal I had in mind today.
