Testing an API often starts with understanding how it’s meant to work. From there, you might explore how it behaves with different inputs, and eventually automate appropriate checks. In this 404 Talk, Julia Pottinger walks through three tools that support each of those stages.Â
You’ll see one tool that helps you explore and understand API documentation, one designed for manual testing and experimentation, and one for automating your tests in code. Each one is shown in action with practical examples, highlighting when and why you might choose it.
Resources
Here are the three tools that support different stages of API testing covered in this talk:
- Swagger UI: a browser-based tool for viewing API documentation. It helps you understand what requests are available, what responses to expect, and how the API is structured. It’s great for learning and sharing how an API works, but doesn’t support automation or custom inputs.
- Postman: a versatile tool for making and inspecting API requests. It’s ideal for exploring API behaviour, checking responses, and collaborating with others using shared collections. While it supports basic automation, it’s best suited for manual exploration.
- PactumJS: a JavaScript-based tool for automating API tests. It’s powerful and integrates well into CI/CD pipelines, but requires some coding knowledge. It’s useful for building repeatable checks once you understand what you want to validate.
Each tool serves a different purpose, from documentation to exploration, and automation. Julia encourages using a mix of tools to support your goals and reminds us that tools help, but a strong understanding of the API itself is key.
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