Testing distributed systems: contract testing, chaos engineering, observability, and the failure-mode thinking microservices architectures demand.
An API dependency map shows which APIs call, feed or wait on one another. This guide covers the four kinds of link, the evidence that proves each one, how to calculate a blast radius, and how to use the map for test ordering, mocks and change reviews.
Is API testing integration testing? Sometimes. This guide explains API integration testing, how it differs from unit, contract and end-to-end tests, how to handle dependencies with Testcontainers, service virtualization and mocks, and walks through a docker-compose + pytest example that runs in CI.
Mocking vs stubbing for APIs, plus fakes, spies and service virtualization: what each test double does, when to use which, and worked examples with WireMock, MSW and Prism.
A runnable Pact contract testing tutorial: a pact-js consumer test, publishing to a Pact Broker or PactFlow, provider verification with pact-js or pact-jvm, can-i-deploy in CI, common pitfalls, and how Pact compares with schema-first OpenAPI and bi-directional contract testing.
API contract testing verifies that providers and consumers honor a shared interface contract (an OpenAPI schema or a Pact consumer contract), so breaking changes are caught in the pull request and services can deploy independently. Examples, approaches, a CI workflow and tools.
What API testing is, in simple words: the types of API tests, what to verify on every endpoint, how API testing works step by step, the tools for each job, and the practices that keep a suite fast and trustworthy.
Contract testing tools compared: Pact, PactFlow, Spring Cloud Contract, Specmatic, Schemathesis, Dredd, Prism, Microcks and OpenAPI diff tools, with a comparison table, open-source and Java picks, and how to choose.
Master distributed tracing for microservices with this complete guide covering OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, trace context propagation, and practical implementation.
How to do end-to-end API testing for microservices: chaining calls across services, handling async steps, environments, service virtualization, test data, frameworks and CI/CD, with a worked checkout example.
