Playwright for API Testing

July 01, 2025

Playwright is best known for end-to-end testing of web applications, but it’s also a powerful tool for API testing. With Playwright, you can test both frontend and backend in the same framework, making your tests more complete and efficient.

Here’s a simple overview of how to use Playwright for API testing:

✅ Why Use Playwright for API Testing?

Works with RESTful APIs alongside UI tests

Easily integrates API testing into browser-based workflows

Supports request mocking, authentication, and network inspection

Allows testing APIs in isolation or with UI

🔧 Basic Setup (Node.js)

Make sure you have Playwright installed:

npm init -y

npm install @playwright/test

Create a basic test file:

npx playwright test

🧪 Making an API Call in Playwright

Here’s how to test an API endpoint using Playwright:

// tests/api-test.spec.js

const { test, expect } = require('@playwright/test');

test('GET request to API', async ({ request }) => {

const response = await request.get('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1');

expect(response.ok()).toBeTruthy();

const data = await response.json();

expect(data.id).toBe(1);

expect(data.title).toBeDefined();

});

📤 Sending POST Requests

You can also test POST, PUT, and DELETE methods:

test('POST request to create a new post', async ({ request }) => {

const response = await request.post('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts', {

data: {

title: 'Playwright API Test',

body: 'This is a test',

userId: 1,

});

expect(response.status()).toBe(201);

const data = await response.json();

expect(data.title).toBe('Playwright API Test');

});

🔐 Handling Auth Tokens

You can set headers for authentication:

const response = await request.get('https://yourapi.com/secure-data', {

headers: {

Authorization: 'Bearer your_token_here',

});

🧰 Best Practices

Group related API tests using describe() blocks

Validate both status codes and response body

Combine with UI tests: login through API, test UI flow

Use fixtures to reuse auth tokens or setup data

📝 Conclusion

Playwright isn’t just for UI testing — it’s a great choice for API testing too. You can validate backend services, run quick checks, and even use API calls to set up or tear down UI tests. This dual capability makes Playwright a powerful, all-in-one testing tool for modern web applications.

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