Design and Build Great Web APIs

Testing with SRTs

An easy way to start testing your API is to focus just on the interface itself with what I call simple request tests, or SRTs. SRTs are just what the name sounds like: a simple HTTP request you can run to validate that the minimal elements of the API are working as you would expect. And that’s how I use SRTs—to validate the API.

Here are a few examples of SRTs used for testing an API that supports managing people’s contact information:

ch09-testing/srt-requests.txt

# person api test requests
# 2020-02 mamund

http://localhost:8181/
http://localhost:8181/list/
http://localhost:8181/filter?status=active
http://localhost:8181/ -X POST -d \
  id=q1w2e3r4&status=pending&email=[e-mail]

http://localhost:8181/q1w2e3r4 ...