How to best automate my API testing workflow

New to APIs/Postman
1

Hey! Started using Postman heavily over the past few months and I’ve got it to a point where it’s providing a bit of value which is great. However, much of the setup is done manually and many of the tests are hardcoded. This makes it difficult to keep the collections up to date when a new API version is released or changes are made. Collections are also hard to reuse since, as I mentioned before, tests are hard-coded. I am utilizing environment values which helps but not enough.

A few questions…

  1. is there an automated way for Postman to detect when new changes to an API are made? If not is there an easy way for me to import an API to my collection rather than doing it manually as I am today?
  2. is there an easy/automated way to test all possible combinations of an API? Meaning, passing in all possible combos of query parameters.

Here’s a look at my company’s API docs if you’re interested in what I’m working with.

Help here would be much much appreciated. Thanks!

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2

Great question, thanks for sharing what you are dealing with.

  1. Postman can’t “detect” changes to the API. You can however look into using an API schema, which can make this process easier, but maybe not as you want it.

  2. There is no automated way to do such a thing. You need to put a bit of work into writing the tests that are relevant to your API. Testing absolutely every possible combination is not always the best approach. You may want to test only some critical paths and parameters. You need to also think about which other testing layers exist and how they can cover the functionality which you want to test on this level with Postman.

I recommend making API testing part of the development process and not an afterthought.

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