With hostctl you can add content to your hosts file temporarily with the --wait flag.

The command you run will wait for the given time or until you hit ctrl-c signal.

After that, the action will be undone automatically.

Examples

Add temporal and wait for ctrl-c

Command: cat .etchosts | hostctl add ephemeral --wait 0

Output:

+-----------+--------+------------+------------------------------+
|  PROFILE  | STATUS |     IP     |            DOMAIN            |
+-----------+--------+------------+------------------------------+
| awesome   | on     | 127.0.0.1  | web.my-awesome-project.local |
| awesome   | on     | 127.0.0.1  | api.my-awesome-project.local |
+-----------+--------+------------+------------------------------+

Waiting until ctrl+c to remove from profile 'ephemeral'

^C
Profile 'ephemeral' removed.