Learn API testing, from your first request to a shift-left pipeline.

Yes. All 68 lessons, the 15 video lessons and the practice API are free, with no signup and no credit card. Hands-on labs from the third lesson of each track ask for your email and role once, which unlocks every lab on the site.

Not here yet. The Learning Center is free and you can track which lessons you have completed, but it does not issue certificates today; certificates for finishing a track are on the roadmap. If you need a certificate for an employer now, use these lessons to learn and a certified course for the paper.

Start with what an API is and how a request and a response are built, then learn HTTP methods and status codes. Next, learn how REST, GraphQL and SOAP differ and how authentication works, and only then write your first tests. API 101, the beginner path on this page, follows exactly that order and you can run every step in your browser.

The Learning Center is laid out as that roadmap, in 9 tracks: API fundamentals; REST, GraphQL, SOAP and WebSockets; authentication; first test patterns; OpenAPI, contract and schema testing; test data, mocks and end-to-end testing; CI/CD, regression and performance; AI and shift-left strategy; and a product track for Shift-Left API itself. Take them in order, or start where your role does.

Each lesson takes 6 to 12 minutes. The API 101 beginner path (10 steps) takes about 2 hours, and all 68 lessons take about 9.5 hours. Reading is the quick part: getting comfortable usually takes a few weeks of regular practice against a real API.

The basics are approachable, because an API test is visible: you send a request and check the response. What takes practice is deciding what to test, such as negative cases, authentication and contracts, and then automating the tests in a pipeline. Learning HTTP first, then test design, then automation keeps each step small.

No. The beginner path starts from zero: you read raw HTTP requests and responses and run them from the page. Coding helps later when you automate tests, and the lessons link to beginner guides for Postman and Python when you get there.

Yes. The lessons use a public sandbox at demo.totalshiftleft.ai: a small store API with users, products and orders, its OpenAPI spec, a GraphQL endpoint and a SOAP service with a WSDL. Flags such as ?delay=2000 and ?error=503 simulate slow and failing responses. It needs no key, each visitor gets a private session, and the data resets when you stop using it.

Not to start. Lessons run in your browser and send real HTTPS requests to the sandbox, so you see actual JSON, headers and status codes without installing Postman, curl or an SDK. The hands-on labs use Shift-Left API: the free edition, or the 15-day trial for Test Run Packs, CI and the performance and security add-ons.

Yes. Click "Mark as complete" on a lesson and this page and the track pages show your progress, check off the lessons you have done and offer to continue where you left off. Progress is saved in your browser, so there is no account to create; it does not carry over to another browser or device.