Frisby.js: BDD For Your REST API

Frisby.js is a REST API testing framework built on node.js and Jasmine that makes testing API endpoints easy, fast, and fun. Use Frisby to step in the shoes of your developer community and ensure consistency in API response structures, keys, and types. Great for ensuring your APIs don’t change or break across versions, and remain reliable and consistent so your developer community can thrive.

Transcript

1. : BDD for your
   REST API
   Vance Lucas • Co-Founder, Brightbit
   http://brightb.it
   

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2. Who are You?
   • Vance Lucas
   • http://vancelucas.com
   • @vlucas (for heckling)
   • Brightbit
   • http://brightb.it
   • Design, Development & Consulting for
   web apps, mobile apps and APIs
   

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3. What is Frisby.js?
   • Firsby.js is a JSON REST API testing tool
   written in JavaScript using Jasmine and
   node.js
   • npm install frisby
   • API Docs: http://frisbyjs.com/
   • Fork me: https://github.com/vlucas/frisby
   

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4. Why Make Frisby.js?
   • Developed for a Brightbit client during a
   major API code refactoring
   • Needed to ensure unmodified API outputs
   were the same in both old & new versions
   • Needed to ensure apps would not break
   • Client’s production API traffic
   • 2k+ req/s baseline (24/7)
   • 4-5k req/s peak
   

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5. Behavior Driven
   Development
   

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6. BDD is driven by business
   value; that is, the benefit to the
   business which accrues once the
   application is in production. The only
   way in which this benefit can be
   realized is through the user
   interface(s) to the application,
   usually (but not always) a GUI.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior_Driven_Development
   

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7. BDD tests the user
   interface of your
   application
   

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8. A developer’s user
   interface to your
   application is your API
   

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9. Are you sure your API
   is working exactly like
   it is supposed to?
   

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10. Integers & Floats are
    not strings, Boolens are
    actually boolean, etc.
    

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11. Frisby.js Can...
    • Ensure that your API is working (with
    seamless integration into Continuous
    Integration tools like Jenkins, etc.)
    • Check return values
    • Check return types and object structures
    • Test your full stack instead of just code
    • Act as basic developer API documentation
    • Help users report bugs with code
    

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12. Full Stack Testing
    • See and use your own API from the
    perspective of your developers
    • Test through the caching layer - enables
    tests for cache invalidation issues
    • Encourages you to setup a proper test/
    development environment (to not create
    and delete real items via your API)
    

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13. Bug Reporting
    • Put your Frisby tests in an a public
    GitHub repository & share the URL
    • Developers can fork your repo, enter
    their auth details, and run the API tests
    • You may want a test/dev (non-production) API url for this
    • Developers can submit pull requests
    to report bugs in your API with Frisby tests
    • You can review, fix the issue, and merge in
    their code to prevent regressions
    

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14. The Frisby.js API
    

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15. Simple Syntax
    frisby.create('List objects from webservice')
    .get('http://mywebservice.com/example.json')
    .expectStatus(200)
    .expectJSONTypes('items.*', {
    id: Number,
    name: String,
    has_stuff: Boolean,
    })
    .toss();
    

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16. Helpers / Config
    • globalSetup
    • setup
    • reset
    • timeout
    • addHeader
    • removeHeader
    • setHeaders
    • auth
    • after / afterJSON
    • get / post / put /
    delete
    • create / toss
    

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17. Expectations
    • expectStatus
    • expectHeader
    • expectHeaderContains
    • expectJSON
    • expectJSONTypes
    • expectBodyContains
    • expectJSONLength
    • expectMaxResponseTime
    

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18. Inspectors
    • inspectJSON
    • inspectBody
    • inspectRequest
    • inspectResponse
    • inspectStatus
    

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19. DEMO TIME!
    

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20. Questions?
    Rate this talk: https://joind.in/6239
    

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