Framework Milestone 5: API Layer

Why it matters

API tests are fast and stable, and an API layer is what makes hybrid tests possible. Interviewers for SDET roles expect both.

What to build

An HTTP client wrapper. One class or module that knows the base URL (from your config), sends JSON, adds the Authorization: Bearer token, and turns responses into objects. Tests never build raw requests.
Models. Typed classes or records for a policy, a claim and an error, so tests compare fields rather than strings. Read the API reference for each shape.
Sign in and reset. A login(username, portal) method that returns the token, and a call to POST /staff/reset as the admin before the suite, replacing the manual reset from milestone 4.
API tests. List policies with a filter, file a claim and read it back, and check the errors: a claim on an expired policy (422 with fields.policyId), a request without a token (401), and a customer trying to approve (403).

Rules

The token is never written to a file or a log.
Check the status code and the body: a 200 with the wrong data is still a failure.
API tests don't open a browser.

Hints

Selenium

Selenium has no HTTP client, so add one: REST Assured or HttpClient (Java), requests (Python), HttpClient (C#), or fetch/axios (JavaScript). Keep it in its own package, beside the page objects.

Playwright

Playwright's request fixture (APIRequestContext) is an HTTP client: give it the base URL in config, and use request.post(`/api/cover/${env}/login`, { data }).

These are pointers, not solutions. TestDojo doesn't publish a finished framework: the point is that you build and understand your own.

Done when

One client class sends every API request, with the base URL from config
Responses are read into models, not compared as raw text
The suite resets its data through the API before it starts
Tests cover 200, 201, 401, 403 and 422 responses
The API tests run without a browser, in a few seconds

Ticks are saved in this browser only, for your own tracking.

In an interview

Questions this milestone prepares you for, and what a good answer covers. Answer them in your own words, about your own framework.

How do you test an API?: Status codes, response bodies and schemas, error cases and authorisation, not just the happy path.
How is your API layer structured?: A client, models and endpoint methods, kept apart from the tests, with configuration and auth in one place.
UI tests or API tests: which do you write more of?: The test pyramid: most checks at the API level, a smaller set of UI journeys, and why.

Note the decision you made in this milestone and why. Those notes become your README in milestone 9.