Multi Step scriptable lightweight API Journeys

[andrewvc]

Currently our synthetic journeys are all browser based. In the future it'd be good to add support for browser-less journeys for testing APIs or other things that don't need a browser.

This would also be useful for supporting odd protocols heartbeat doesn't support since with a full JS environment almost anything can be tested.

This issue is a stub and needs further fleshing out (example syntax etc.)(

[vigneshshanmugam]

Playwright added support for doing API testing natively - https://playwright.dev/docs/next/test-api-testing/

It would be easy as exposing the request context in our journey API and users can do multi step API testing at ease. Take a look at the example on the PW docs page, we would be able to do almost all of those with our steps and hook apis as well.

[andrewvc]

This is pretty awesome! A huge +1 from me on that approach!

[iorfix]

Is there any update about this enhancement? Since playwright added test-api-testing, is it already possible to use it in synthetic tests?

[vigneshshanmugam]

@iorfix Not yet, we need to expose the request object from Playwright which can be used for API testing.

[hager-yousri]

any update about using playwright api testing in synthetic tests?
if it is still not supported when it is expected to be supported plz?

[drewpost]

Hi @hager-yousri - thanks for following this issue. This is a capability that is on our roadmap. We're currently pushing towards the 1.0 release of our new Synthetics app in Elastic Observability. In addition to the full browser synthetic testing, we will be delivering the single ping availability checking that's in Uptime today. After our 1.0 launch, we will look to add in multi-step API journeys. It is a high priority for us.

[paulmouzas]

Is there any update on this? I would like to use some lightweight checks that require oauth2 authentication involving an initial step of retrieving an access token from a separate endpoint (OAuth 2 client credentials flow). Heartbeat doesn't support this so a multistep API journey would fulfill this requirement.

I see that there is a request object that does not have the full overhead of the browser object, but it does not appear to be intended to be used in this way. The docs state that

The request parameter is not intended to be used for writing pure API tests. Instead, it is a way to support writing plain HTTP requests in service of a browser-based test.

[paulb-elastic]

@paulmouzas you are correct in that the request object is intended to be used as part of a browser monitor (e.g. getting some content/data from an API endpoint that is then used in a browser based user journey).

I'm afraid we still don't have a timescale for having multi step scriptable lightweight API Journeys at this stage as we focus on the rest of Synthetics (brand new beta Synthetics UI launched in 8.7, multi step browser monitors and single step lightweight checks managed under the new UI and as Project Monitors).

[iorfix]

@paulb-elastic Are there any plans about this feature? It would be very useful for API testing

[paulb-elastic]

Hi @iorfix we don't have any more concrete dates on when we'll be getting to this feature, it's on our backlog at the moment, but not prioritised to start working on it.