API Hero: Beyond API Requests — Building Executable API Workflows

API Hero is a tool designed to go beyond simple API requests and help users build executable workflows for API testing and automation. Rather than sending standalone HTTP requests, API Hero focuses on understanding the relationships between requests and how they depend on each other.

API Hero is built around the concept of collections, which group related API requests together. Each collection provides context and allows users to identify which requests require authentication, produce or consume variables, and are related to other endpoints. Variables created by API requests are not just placeholders, but rather represent data flowing through the API workflow.

One of the key features of API Hero is its ability to create scenarios, which are executable workflows that represent the actual execution flow of the API. Scenarios take into account the relationships between steps, ensuring that the correct data is passed from one step to the next. This approach goes beyond treating API requests as isolated objects and instead focuses on the overall workflow.

Authentication is also an important consideration in API Hero. It is treated as a connected part of the workflow, with dependencies on factors such as where the authentication comes from and how it gets into the request. This approach allows API Hero to handle authentication in a more comprehensive way, rather than simply checking whether an endpoint requires it.

Once dependencies are understood, API Hero can create scenarios, which are executable workflows representing the actual execution flow of the API. These scenarios take into account the relationships between steps, ensuring that data is passed correctly from one step to the next. This allows API Hero to go beyond treating API requests as isolated objects and instead focus on the overall workflow.

In addition to testing individual requests, API Hero also allows for testing at the workflow level. This means that negative testing can cover a range of scenarios, such as invalid authentication, missing required parameters, invalid resource IDs, malformed requests, and unauthorized operations. The execution flow of API Hero involves executing a request, running assertions on the response, and determining whether the test has passed or failed.

This allows API Hero to provide a more comprehensive testing experience, going beyond simple request-level testing.

One of the key features of API Hero is its integration with AI. While AI can be used to generate HTTP requests, API Hero takes a more thoughtful approach. Instead of simply generating another request, AI is used to understand the API collection, analyze it, prepare it for testing, and suggest scenarios and tests. This allows users to focus on higher-level tasks, such as analyzing the API and preparing it for testing, while AI handles the more technical aspects.

API Hero has three main user goals: Generate Tests, Create Scenarios, and Prepare Collection. The "Prepare with AI" workflow simplifies the experience by automating several steps, including cataloging the API, understanding its structure, detecting authentication and variables, extracting dependencies, suggesting scenarios, and generating tests. By taking care of these technical details under the surface, API Hero allows users to focus on their main goals without getting bogged down in the details.