🧩 API Testing Playground

A hands-on playground for exploring and automating REST APIs using Postman, Newman, and Playwright (TypeScript).
This repository documents my journey of mastering API testing — from learning fundamentals to building a full-fledged automated test suite.

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🚀 Project Overview

This project is designed to:

• Understand how REST APIs work (requests, responses, status codes, etc.)
• Explore Postman for manual and semi-automated API testing
• Write and organize Postman test scripts
• Run automated tests via Newman (CLI runner)
• Transition to Playwright + TypeScript for API automation
• Integrate with GitHub Actions for CI testing (coming later)

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🗂️ Repository Structure

api-testing-playground/
│
├── README.md
├── docs/
│ └── phase1/
│ └── api-basics-with-examples.md # API fundamentals with ReqRes examples
│
├── collections/
│ └── phase1/
│ ├── reqres-playground.postman_collection.json
│ ├── trello-api-auth.postman_collection.json
│ └── environment.postman_environment.json
│
├── reports/
│ └── phase1/
│ └── newman-report.html
│
└── .gitignore

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📖 Learning Roadmap

Week	Focus Area	Tools / Concepts
Week 1	REST API Basics + Postman Testing	ReqRes API, Trello API, Authorization, Test Scripts
Week 2	Playwright API Automation Setup	TypeScript, API Assertions, Data-Driven Tests
Week 3	CI Integration & Reporting	Newman CLI, GitHub Actions, HTML Reports
Week 4	Advanced Scenarios	Mock APIs, Environment Variables, Chaining Requests

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🔍 APIs Explored

1️⃣ ReqRes

• Public mock REST API for testing
• CRUD operations on /users
• Used for learning basic request-response flows

2️⃣ Trello API

• Real API with authentication
• Demonstrates API Key + Token authorization
• Used to practice environment variables and chaining requests

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🧠 Concepts Covered

• HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
• Status codes (2xx, 4xx, 5xx)
• API Authorization (API Keys, Bearer Tokens)
• Environment and global variables
• Postman test scripts using pm.expect
• Chaining requests and data extraction
• Data-driven testing with JSON/CSV files
• Collection runs using Newman
• HTML reporting
• Documentation for QA portfolios

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🧪 Example Test Script (Postman)

pm.test("Status code is 200", function () {
    pm.response.to.have.status(200);
});

pm.test("Response time is less than 500ms", function () {
    pm.expect(pm.response.responseTime).to.be.below(500);
});

pm.test("User object contains name", function () {
    const jsonData = pm.response.json();
    pm.expect(jsonData).to.have.property("name");
});

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⚙️ Running Collections via Newman

You can run any Postman collection from the terminal:

  -e collections/week1/environment.postman_environment.json \
  -r cli,html \
  --reporter-html-export reports/week1/newman-report.html

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🧾 Reports

All Newman HTML reports are stored under /reports/weekX/.

Example:

Week 1 Report → ReqRes Collection

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🧭 Next Steps

• Complete Postman-based testing for Trello API
• Begin Playwright + TypeScript setup (Week 2)
• Add Newman reports for all collections
• Automate runs using GitHub Actions
• Write portfolio case study (in /docs/)

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🧰 Tech Stack

Tool	Purpose
Postman	Manual & scripted API testing
Newman	CLI test execution & reporting
Playwright (TypeScript)	API automation framework
GitHub Actions	Continuous Integration
Markdown	Documentation

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👨‍💻 Author

Kalhari Jayasinghe
QA Engineer | Developer | Test Automation Enthusiast

🌐 LinkedIn Profile

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⭐ Acknowledgements

• ReqRes API
• Trello REST API
• Postman Docs
• Playwright API Testing Guide