How to use Karate while Microservices Testing

Choosing the best microservices testing framework for dealing with complex HTTP requests can be challenging at times. But with an open source tool such as Karate, you can get this done fast without breaking a sweat. Developed in 2017, Karate produces faster results and also enables teams to get feedback from the API in a matter of minutes. This ensures improved scalability because quicker feedback lets teams deploy faster.

A Gherkin-based API testing tool is ideal for quick prototyping and simpler testing to any depth of testing you want. Karate features a simple quick start mode, integrated dashboards, and other user-friendly designs that are gaining attention from the testing and developers community.

Why Use Karate for Microservices Testing?

1. Karate has a simple and intuitive DSL (Domain-Specific Language) format that allows developers to write tests with a minimum amount of effort. Karate also allows reusing test scenarios.

2. Karate enables parallelizable testing when you have to run multiple tests and as a result you can save time and reduce the CI/CD duration cycles. Hence, Karate relieves you from redundancy activities since test scenarios are independent of one another and thus running tests in parallel can readily be done with a lot of uniqueness and creativity.

3. Nowadays, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is the most used format for parsing data across rest APIs, and in most cases, tests are written in most programming languages. For instance, JAVA requires a POJO (Plain Old Java Object) to convert such a test to JSON-based APIs using a serializer. Karate on the other hand offers diverse ways to create and declare JSON as-is and in the same way as it was sent from the calling side. This practice minimizes error and ensures optimal readability.