Advanced Testing Strategies

You've mastered the basics: scenarios, assertions, automation, and monitoring. Now let's explore the "black belt" techniques that distinguish professional QA engineers from the rest.

Automating "Standard" flows is easy. Catching edge cases, security holes, and regression bugs requires a strategy. And the most modern strategy involves Artificial Intelligence.

1. AI-Driven Automated Testing

Writing comprehensive test cases manually is exhausted. You might think of the "Happy Path", but will you remember to test a 255-character email? Or a SQL injection attack?

Apidog's AI Test Generation acts as your intelligent pair-programmer, automatically analyzing your API definition to create comprehensive test suites.

Generating Comprehensive Coverage

Instead of writing tests one by one, use the Generate with AI feature in the API's "Test Cases" tab.

The AI categorizes tests into four critical buckets:

Positive Tests: "Happy paths" (e.g., Valid login).

Negative Tests: Error handling (e.g., Invalid email, missing fields).

Boundary Tests: Edge cases often missed by humans (e.g., Max length strings, empty arrays).

Security Tests: Common vulnerabilities (e.g., SQL Injection, XSS payloads).

Pro Tip: Use the "Custom Instructions" field to guide the AI. For example: "Ensure all phone numbers are tested with various international formats" or "Test against the specific password policy of 1 uppercase, 1 symbol".

By accepting these AI-generated cases, you instantly increase your test coverage from "Basic" to "Expert" in seconds.

2. Regression Testing Strategy

Definition: Ensuring that new code didn't break old features.

A common mistake is testing only the new feature.

Bad Strategy: Developer updates POST /login. QA tests POST /login.

Good Strategy: Developer updates POST /login. QA runs the Full Regression Suite (Login, Register, Checkout, Profile) because a change inAuth could break everything.

In Apidog: Group your core business flows into a "Regression Scenario" folder and trigger it via CI/CD on every Pull Request.

3. API Contract Testing

Definition: Ensuring the API implementation matches the design document (OpenAPI/Swagger).

If the frontend expects userId (string) but the backend changes it to user_id (integer), the app crashes.

Solution: Use Apidog's Schema Validation (covered in Chapter 4).

Strategy: Treat the API Design as the "Single Source of Truth". If the code deviates from the doc, the test MUST fail.

4. Security Testing (Fuzzing)

Functional tests usually follow the "Happy Path". Security tests explore the "Dark Path".

What to Test:

Auth Bypass: Try to access GET /admin/users without a token.

SQL Injection: Try sending ' OR 1=1 -- as a username.

XSS: Try sending <script>alert(1)</script> in a comment field.

In Apidog: You can manually create a "Security" scenario using Data-Driven Testing, OR simply use the AI Security Tests category mentioned above to automatically generate malicious payloads for you.

5. Boundary Testing

Bugs love edges. Use what we call Boundary Value Analysis.

If a password must be 6-12 characters:

Test 5 chars (Fail)

Test 6 chars (Pass)

Test 12 chars (Pass)

Test 13 chars (Fail)

In Apidog: Let the AI Boundary Tests category handle this. It automatically calculates the maxLength, minLength, and type constraints from your API definition and generates values right on the edge.

6. Test Maintenance and Coverage

Writing tests is fun. Maintaining them is work.

Managing "Flaky" Tests

If a test fails 10% of the time (due to network, timing, or random data), developers will stop trusting it.

Fix: Increase timeouts.

Fix: Use better cleanup (Teardown) steps.

Fix: Mock external dependencies that are unstable.

Coverage vs. Quality

100% test coverage is a vanity metric.

Focus: Cover the critical 20% of endpoints that generate 80% of the business value (Login, Checkout, Payment).

Ignore: Low-risk admin endpoints or static data endpoints can have lighter coverage.

Key Takeaways

Implement regression, contract, and security testing

Focus on test coverage and maintenance

Adopt advanced strategies for quality assurance

What's Next

Congratulations! You have completed the comprehensive guide to API Testing with Apidog. You now possess the skills to build a robust, automated, and professional testing architecture.

Let's wrap everything up in the Summary.

Continue with → Chapter Summary

Advanced Testing Strategies

1. AI-Driven Automated Testing#

Generating Comprehensive Coverage#

2. Regression Testing Strategy#

3. API Contract Testing#

4. Security Testing (Fuzzing)#

What to Test:#

5. Boundary Testing#

6. Test Maintenance and Coverage#

Managing "Flaky" Tests#

Coverage vs. Quality#

Key Takeaways#

What's Next#