GRPC <=> Rest transcoding works fine, you can do this with envoy for example. And if you use the connect protocol (also from buf) then you can also use json.

GRPC <=> Rest transcoding works fine, you can do this with envoy for example. And if you use the connect protocol (also from buf) then you can also use json. So it's quite achievable to get all the benefits you want from the gRPC ecosystem for developing your service while also allowing quick and dirty client usage (i.e. scripting with cURL).