What's an API and How Do I Test It?

API-based applications have become ubiquitous in the past few years. Yet many of us still really don't know what an API is from the inside out. Moreover, many of us don't know much about how to comprehensively test them! Join Paul Merrill to learn what everyone is doing and talking about related to APIs: microservices, REST, endpoints, requests, request methods, and responses. Paul demonstrates four free tools you can use to directly interact with a simple API: curl, the browser, Postman, and Java (with Rest Assured). Learn techniques for testing APIs at the service level and how to test APIs faster with greater coverage and quicker test automation. Walk away with an understanding of what JSON is, how APIs use JSON, and how to go about verifying that it is correct. With new knowledge and skills, you’ll do a better testing job and give more valuable feedback to the API designers and developers.