InstallationUpdated Mar 18, 2026
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Choose how to install Shift-Left API (Cloud or Self-hosted), then complete initial setup so you can create projects and run API tests.
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- InstallationUpdated Mar 18, 2026
Install on Windows (Self-hosted Installer)
Step-by-step guide to install Shift-Left API on Windows—Installer, Engine, Studio, MongoDB setup, and verification.
Read article - ConfigurationUpdated Mar 18, 2026
Configuration fundamentals
Where to configure base URL, authentication, and environment variables in Shift-Left API so test runs are stable and CI-ready.
Read article - ConfigurationUpdated Feb 12, 2026
Initial configuration
Complete first-time setup—core preferences, licensing, users, and your first project—then validate the installation with a test run.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Platform Overview: How Shift-Left API Works
A map of the platform: the project/feature/endpoint tree, the Execution, Reporting, Analytics, Mocks and Workflows areas, and the path from spec to results.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Create Your First Project in Shift-Left API
Create a project — the workspace holding your endpoints, tests, environments, and results. Covers naming, scoping decisions, and what to do immediately after.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Project Operations: Import API Definitions
Import an OpenAPI, WSDL, or GraphQL definition into your project by file upload or URL, with Auto-Detect, then confirm the endpoints that were discovered.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Managing Projects and Endpoints
Navigate the project → feature → endpoint tree in the sidebar: search and filter projects, open features, select endpoints, and reach the test workflow.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Project Settings: Environments and Auth
Set base URLs per environment, authentication profiles, default headers, change detection, and AI generation options — the settings that make a project run.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Authentication Profiles: Choose and Configure a Method
Most APIs refuse a request that does not prove who is calling. In Shift-Left Studio you describe how to prove it once, in an authentication profile, and every test, pack, workflow and performance run in the project uses it.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
OAuth 2.0 Sign-In: Browser and Device Code
Many APIs sit behind an identity provider such as Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Auth0, Keycloak or Google, and only accept a token issued to a signed-in user. You cannot get that token with a client ID and secret alone.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Sign In With Steps: Login, One-Time Code, Token and Refresh
Some APIs sign you in with a sequence of calls they designed themselves. A typical example: post a username and password, receive a one-time code by SMS or email, post the code back, and receive a bearer token plus a refresh token.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Postman Collection Import
Import a Postman collection (v2.0 or v2.1) into a project: requests become endpoints and tests, pm.test assertions are converted, and anything that needs review is flagged.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Feature Management: Grouping Endpoints
Features group endpoints and come from your spec's tags. Covers creating and editing by hand, why tagging matters, and what deleting a feature takes with it.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Import and Discover Endpoints
Import endpoints from OpenAPI/Swagger, WSDL, or GraphQL, bring in requirements from your backlog, and detect endpoint changes as your API evolves.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Endpoint Management: Select and Maintain
Find endpoints by method and path, add or edit them by hand, try a request for debugging, and know when to re-import instead of editing the tree manually.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 19, 2026
Validate Endpoints
After selecting an endpoint, confirm method, path, connectivity, authentication, and contract alignment before relying on the definition in broader workflows.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
API Change Detection
Detect when an imported API spec changes, review new, modified, removed, and breaking endpoints in a diff, then approve and import the changes as new endpoint versions.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Understanding Rule Intelligence
Rule Intelligence turns requirement documents and API specs into structured, testable requirements—review them, then feed them into test generation with coverage and traceability.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Importing and Reviewing Requirements
Upload requirement documents, extract text, AI-parse them into typed requirements, then review, edit, and approve the requirements that drive test generation.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Test Data and Generation Setup
Upload sample Excel/CSV data so generated tests use realistic inputs, then check generation readiness per endpoint and tune request/response mapping overrides.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Coverage and Extraction Fidelity
The Coverage tab shows a per-endpoint × strategy test-coverage matrix, flags endpoints with no tests, and reports how faithfully requirements were extracted from your documents.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Requirements Traceability Matrix
Trace each requirement to the tests and endpoints that verify it, run impact analysis when requirements change, and export a requirements traceability matrix for audits.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Continuous Learning Insights
The Learning tab shows what your workspace has learned from reviewer edits and test runs—acceptance rate, edit distance, time to green, flake rate, and a generation-quality score.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Many Requirement Documents: Upload, Queue and Review Together
Most projects are described by more than one document: a BRD, a rules workbook, a set of user stories, meeting notes, an email thread.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
One Requirement Set: Duplicates and Conflicts Across Documents
When several documents describe the same system, they overlap. The BRD says "Email is required", the meeting notes say "Customer email must be present", and the rules workbook lists it again as BR-007.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Excel Workbooks: Reading Requirements Sheet by Sheet
A requirements workbook is rarely one table. A typical file has a cover sheet, a list of numbered requirements under a two-row title, a data dictionary of fields, a sheet of test data, and a glossary.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Document Versions and Delete Impact
Requirement documents change. When the BRD moves from v1 to v2, you need to know which rules changed, which are new, and which disappeared — without reviewing all of them again and without losing the tests you already built.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Requirement Gaps and Use-Case Journeys
Every other requirements screen reports what Shift-Left Studio found. The Gaps & conflicts tab reports what it could not turn into a test, and why.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Project Assistant: Ask Questions About Your Project
The Project Assistant is a chat panel that reads your own project data (requirements, specs, endpoints, tests and runs) before answering, and shows you exactly what it looked at.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Project Assistant: Proposals You Approve
Ask the Project Assistant to run tests, fix a failing test, generate tests, link a requirement or schedule a report. It prepares a proposal card, and nothing changes until you accept it.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Project Assistant: Create Projects, Endpoints, Tests and Workflows
Build a project from a conversation: ask the Project Assistant to create features, endpoints, tests, requirements, data sets, workflows or authentication, then review each proposal before it is created.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Teaching the Assistant: Feedback and Learned Notes
The Project Assistant in Shift-Left Studio learns from you, one project at a time. When an answer misses something about your project, such as "our 401s come from the API gateway, not the API", you can tell it once.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Generate Endpoint Test Cases
Use Generate tests on the endpoint test-case screen to create critical tests first, then fill coverage gaps—across many test strategies with business-impact severity.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Test Cases: Open, Edit, and Save
Edit a test's request, assertions, and expected response; run and delete in bulk; and use the coverage verdict to find the gaps your suite still has.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Test Configuration
Define environments, variables, headers, and datasets so tests run consistently across dev/stage/prod without hardcoding secrets or setup.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 18, 2026
Execution Mode
Choose where tests run: Shift-Left Engine on server for CI/CD and schedules, or Shift-Left Agent locally for development and private APIs.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 18, 2026
Run Tests and Review Results
Run endpoint test cases from the actions column, monitor progress, and review detailed test-result summaries with assertions and logs.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Test Generation Settings
Control per project which requirement types the AI extracts, which test strategies fire, and which severity tiers are kept—so generation focuses on what matters for that project.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Fix Tests with AI
When a test fails, use Fix with AI to get a proposed patch you can review and apply—plus a fix-suggestion lifecycle that classifies whether the failure is a bad test or a product bug.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
File Uploads and Form Bodies
Many APIs don't take JSON. A login or OAuth token endpoint may expect an HTML-style form. An avatar or document upload expects a multipart form with a file in it.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Assertion Results and Custom Checks
Read assertion results row by row (expected, actual, passed), and write custom checks whose script log appears right under the result when they fail.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Fix with AI: Grounded Repair
How Fix with AI grounds each proposed repair in your API contract, your requirements and the last run, and what the workbench Diagnostics show about what was actually sent.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
JSON-RPC 2.0 and MCP Server Testing
Shift-Left Studio tests JSON-RPC 2.0 services and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers alongside your REST, SOAP and GraphQL APIs. An MCP server is a JSON-RPC 2.0 server with a fixed set of methods, so the same capability covers both.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
WebSocket-RPC Testing
Some services are not called with independent HTTP requests. You open a WebSocket connection, sign in once during the handshake, and then send a series of calls over that same connection.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Testing Server-Sent Events (Streaming) Responses
Test endpoints that answer with text/event-stream: see each event in the response viewer, assert on events, and stream with limits on events, duration and idle time.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Data-Driven Testing
Run a test once per row of data—from an internal table, a saved dataset, a data source, or a generator—binding columns to request fields with {{row.COLUMN}} tokens.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Data Sources
Create reusable connections to CSV, Excel, databases, JSON, or APIs, then bind their columns into tests with [[variable]] tokens for single-row or iterate-all execution.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Test Execution: Run and Manage Test Run Packs
Open Test Execution to create, run, schedule, and monitor Test Run Packs. Covers the packs table, Run Now, enable/disable scheduling, and viewing run results.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Test Run Pack Wizard: Create a Pack
Build a Test Run Pack in five steps — pack details, test selection, execution preferences, notifications, and scheduling — with the validation rules for each.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 18, 2026
Manage and Run Execution Packs
After creating a pack, run it now, edit configuration, monitor status, and manage lifecycle actions from the Execution list.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Run Triage: Understand Why a Run Failed
When a run of 200 tests ends with 47 failures, the hard part is not fixing them. It is working out how many different problems those 47 failures actually are.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Test Validity: What a Green Run Leaves Open
A green run is good news, but it does not always mean what it seems to. A test that only checks "the status was 200" stays green even if the endpoint starts returning an empty body.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Performance Testing: Load, Stress, Spike, Soak and More
A functional test tells you whether your API gives the right answer. A performance test tells you whether it still gives that answer, fast enough, when many people use it at once.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Create and Run a Performance Test
Design a performance test step by step (kind, workloads, load profile, targets), check it with a dry run, run it and watch it live, then find out why a run failed.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Read a Performance Report: Percentiles, Verdicts and SLOs
When a performance run finishes, Shift-Left Studio builds one report for it. The same report is what you see on screen, what you export as HTML, JSON or JUnit, what a share link shows, and what the project assistant reads.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 19, 2026
Test Reporting
Open Reporting to browse execution history, use Run Type to distinguish Functional and Workflow runs, and open reports from the Execution Summaries list.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
High Level Test Report: Read a Run
The first stop after any run: execution metadata, pass rate, test distribution, and per-test rows that drill through into the detailed report.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 19, 2026
Workflow Execution Details
Second reporting step for Workflow runs only: per-workflow node summary, node table, and View Report to open the detailed report for a node.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Detailed Test Report: Per-Test Evidence
Full evidence for one test: the request and response as sent and received, validation results, execution logs, and error information.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Detailed Test Report for Workflow Runs
The Workflow run layout: sequential node executions, extracted variables, per-node request/response and logs, and why an early failure cascades.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Understanding Analytics in Shift-Left API
How Analytics differs from Reporting: trends over time rather than one run. Covers project metrics, time ranges, and what each view answers.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Analytics Dashboards: Panels and Views
Work the Analytics dashboard: project overview, execution and performance summaries, endpoint analytics, environment comparison, and trends.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 19, 2026
Project Analytics
Use the Project Analytics tab to select a project, set the time window, and review overview metrics, status breakdowns, execution summary, and expandable trend and failure sections.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Regression Analysis
See how test outcomes trend over time, catch regressions and newly flaky tests, and compare runs so you know whether quality is improving before a release.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Custom Dashboard Personas
Create named dashboard layouts of widgets and assign them to users, so each role sees the metrics that matter to them—an admin-managed personalization feature.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Sharing and Embedding Dashboards
Share a dashboard via a link (public, authenticated, or password-protected), embed a widget in another site with an iframe/JS snippet, or run a full-screen TV wall display.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Scheduled Reports and Alerts
Email a dashboard report on a recurring schedule and set threshold alerts on quality metrics so the team is notified in-app, by email, or via webhook when something slips.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Dashboard Layout, TV Mode and Focus Project
Reorder, resize, hide and configure dashboard widgets, pick a Focus Project and time range, and show a dashboard full-screen in TV Mode.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Public Address and Sharing from the Desktop App
Set the Public Address that shared dashboard links and emailed reports use, and share dashboards from the desktop app when colleagues cannot reach your machine.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Understanding Mocks
API mocks replace real backend calls during test runs or run as a standalone mock server—organized per project with static or dynamic responses across REST, SOAP, and GraphQL.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Creating and Configuring Mocks
A step-by-step walkthrough: open API Mocks, pick a project, create or bulk-generate mocks, configure static and dynamic responses with conditions and delays, and start the mock server.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Understanding Workflows
Workflows are integration tests: visual flows of API and logic nodes that chain calls, pass data between steps, and validate with per-step and workflow-level SLA assertions.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Creating and Running Workflows
Open Workflows, manage the Integration tests list, then build flows in the editor with Test details, Test library, and Node types—extract variables, add assertions, and launch.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Workflow Doctor: Diagnose and Fix a Workflow
A workflow is the one test in Shift-Left Studio that you assemble by hand: blocks on a canvas, green connectors for the order of execution, and data connectors that carry values from one step to the next.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Build End-to-End Workflows Automatically
An end-to-end workflow tests a journey — create an order, pay for it, fetch the receipt — rather than one call.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Comments
Discuss work in context with threaded comments on tests, endpoints, projects, test runs, requirements, and workflows, with @mentions that surface in the activity feed.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 20, 2026
Help and Version Information
Open Shift-Left API Platform Help to see version and build information for the application, Engine, Studio, and Agent, plus auto-update status and Check for Updates.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 21, 2026
Administration Settings
How the in-app Settings screen is organized: main tabs and sections map to System Administration documentation so you can jump to the right guide.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 22, 2026
Server Connection
Settings > Configuration > Server Connection: point Studio at the Shift-Left Engine URL, view status, and reconfigure when you change environments.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 22, 2026
Proxy Settings
Settings > Configuration > Proxy Settings: enable proxies separately for Shift-Left Engine and Shift-Left Agent based on execution mode.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
License Management: Status and Keys
Read your licence state — Active, Trial, Grace Period, Expired, Revoked, Offline — update the licence key, and understand what each state means for your team.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 21, 2026
User Management
Settings > Licensing & Users > User Management: search users, review limits, add users, and edit or delete accounts (role and status).
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Mar 21, 2026
Role Permissions
Settings > Licensing & Users > Role Permissions: pick a role, then allow or deny grouped capabilities; reset to default or save changes.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
User Policies: Registration and Passwords
System-wide rules for who can sign up and how: public registration, admin approval, email verification, default role, user caps, and password requirements.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
AI Settings
Settings > Integrations > AI Settings: enable the AI engine, choose from ~20 model providers (including self-hosted), manage API keys, and test the connection—system-wide.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Public API
Settings > Integrations > Public API: Swagger and base URL, enable API, rate limits, token expiry, and which roles may use the API for CI/CD.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Email Settings: SMTP and IMAP Profiles
Create the mail profiles that let Shift-Left API send notifications: SMTP and IMAP hosts, ports, security, and credentials — with the usual provider gotchas.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Email Templates: Notification Content
Manage the templates behind notifications: summary, detailed, and custom; categories for reports, system alerts, and test notifications; search and edit.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Audit Logs: Who Did What, and When
Monitor user activity and system events: summary tiles, filters by action, entity, role and status, and per-change field-level before/after detail.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 17, 2026
Debug Logging: Levels and Redaction
Configure log level, file output, rotation and retention, and the sensitive-field redaction list — plus why Debug level is a temporary tool, not a default.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Connect your identity provider (Entra ID/Azure AD, Okta, Google Workspace, or any OIDC/SAML IdP) so users sign in with corporate credentials, with group-to-role mapping.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
API Keys
Create scoped, rotatable API keys for programmatic access to the platform, with a grace window on rotation and immediate revoke—an alternative to username/password login.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Secret Managers
Connect HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, or Azure Key Vault so test credentials are resolved at runtime with a secretref:// reference instead of being stored in the app.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Webhooks
Register outbound webhooks that POST signed event notifications to external URLs—for example when a test run completes—with a signing secret, test/redeliver, and a delivery log.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 14, 2026
MCP Server
Shift-Left Studio's Model Context Protocol (MCP) server lets you connect Claude, Cursor, or another MCP client to the product. Available as of the September 2026 release (build 2.0.96.231).
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Local Runner
Run tests from a lightweight desktop agent on your own machine so you can reach private or internal endpoints the central engine can't, then report results back to the platform.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Compliance and HIPAA
Data-privacy (GDPR) and HIPAA/PHI capabilities—consent, data-subject access and erasure requests, PHI records and access logs, breach recording, and admin compliance reporting.
Read article - Product documentationUpdated Sep 27, 2026
Activity Feed and One Signed-In Machine per User
Turn on the live Activity Feed for administrators, filter and read events, and understand the one-signed-in-machine-per-user policy that signs an account out when it signs in elsewhere.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Sep 20, 2026
Release notes — September 2026 (1–20 September)
Studio now explains your test results instead of just listing them — failed runs grouped into causes, passing runs checked for regressions they would miss, a Project Assistant that answers from your own project and acts on changes you approve, multi-document requirements, self-building workflows, more faithful Postman imports, and a broad performance pass.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Sep 14, 2026
Release notes — September 2026
A Project Assistant that answers from your own project and can act on it, JSON-RPC 2.0 / MCP and WebSocket-RPC testing, streaming responses, failed runs explained as causes, end-to-end workflows built from your requirements, and a platform-wide performance pass.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Aug 3, 2026
Release notes — August 2026
Our largest release to date — enterprise SSO and access control, data-driven testing across many rows of data, a rebuilt test-generation engine, the new Test Workbench, a CI/CD runner, and execution parity between the desktop Agent and the cloud Engine.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Jul 6, 2026
Release notes — July 6, 2026
Data-driven testing built in, enterprise collaboration and access control with workspaces, SSO, and fine-grained roles, plus a smarter AI foundation that learns from your API.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Jun 21, 2026
Release notes — June 21, 2026
Our biggest release yet—a major leap in automatic test generation, 100+ tests per endpoint, a new Coverage dashboard, faster spec imports, scalable execution, and stronger data security.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Jun 10, 2026
Release notes — June 10, 2026
Cookie-based authentication, refreshed analytics charts, and a smoother multi-step workflow canvas.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Jun 3, 2026
Release notes — June 3, 2026
Rename and copy endpoints, plus smoother workflow canvas connector controls across zoom levels.
Read article - Release notesUpdated May 20, 2026
Release notes — May 20, 2026
Reliable auth-profile sync across the Shift-Left Engine and Agent, an EV code-signed Windows installer, and faster test runs.
Read article - Release notesUpdated Feb 12, 2026
Release notes — February 2026
Documentation navigation improvements, faster Help Center discovery, and minor UI fixes released in February 2026.
Read article
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