Does Cypress Support API Testing?

Cypress is a well known widely used user friendly framework, which supports end to end testing. It mainly designed to test front end of the web application, its rapidly growing in IT industry due to its real time and powerful features such as powerful command line interface, real time reloading and intuitive UI there are such many more features which cypress support and thus its widely used now a days for testing purposes.

The most common question is Does cypress support API testing or not?

Yes, Cypress supports API testing. Cypress has built in commands that directly interact with APIs. The built-in commands like cy.request and cy.intercept are the most common methods which are used in cypress to handle APIs.

➽ ”cy.request() ”:

cy.request() command is used to work with GET,POST,PUT,PATCH and DELETE and other types of http request ,  this command allows us to send HTTP requests directly from our cypress tests. We can use this method for testing APIs endpoints, validating API responses returned by API , without involving the UI (User interface).

Example:

➽ ”cy.intercept()”:

This command is mainly used to mock network requests . This will allow us to stun API response , which is useful for testing different server responses , or decoupling UI tests from back-end availability.

Example:

Cypress will provide easy response validation by providing access to response status body,header and duration.

Also it allows us to write API tests along with our UI test within the same test which will reduce the overheads of managing multiple frameworks and code and support end to end testing. We can chain API calls with UI interaction in a single test flow, which ensures that the front-end and back-end of the application is properly integrated and communicating properly.

Cypress support Chai’s BDD (Behaviour-Driven Development) and TDD (Test-Driven Development)assertion feature with wide range of library , with rich set of assertion which can be used to validate API’s response such like validating status code , response time and the content of the response body.

Advantages of API Testing with Cypress:

1.Unified Testing Framework:

With the help of cypress testing framework we can test UI and API testing in the same framework , we does not need to write a different framework for API testing , also this will reduce the need of multiple testing tools and create a seamless and easy to understand testing workflow.

2.Real time feedback:

Cypress most important feature is real time reloading and providing detailed information related to any error message makes it easier to understand what’s wrong and where it needs to be fixed.

3.Integration with CI/CD:

Cypress support continuous integration and continuous deployment which makes it attractive options for UI and API Testing as part of development workflows.

4.Rich Ecosystem:

Cypress will support different plugins and extensions which allows enhanced API testing capa`.

Limitations and Considerations:

Although Cypress supports API testing it is not a full fledged API Testing tool like postman or rest assured . it lacks at certain points while testing an API. It does not support advanced features such as support for complex authentication which is out of the box and support for multiple environments.

Conclusion: 

Cypress have many feature which make it popular in automation industry weather its real time features or providing built in  API testing  .It support UI testing and providing solid support for API testing , with various command like cy.request() and cy.intercept(). It enables API testing within the same framework which is used for end to end testing of any software or web application.

For team who mainly focusing web application with API testing  for those cypress offers an excellent functionalities and ease of use , this helps developers and tester to work together and maintain test more efficiently, within a unified environment which covers both UI And API testing within same framework , which leads faster and efficient development , quick feedback and early bug fixes in web applications.

Although cypress has its own features for testing APIs and it does not fully replace dedicated API testing tools for all scenarios, cypress has its own powerful features for testing that one can use according to their common needs encountered in modern web development and testing.