API Endpoints Under Test

Consider a RESTful service managing employee records. The validation suite targets the following operations:

• GET /staff: Retrieve all employees
• POST /staff: Add a new employee
• GET /staff/{emp_id}: Retrieve a specific employee
• PATCH /staff/{emp_id}: Modify an employee's details
• DELETE /staff/{emp_id}: Remove an employee

Dependency Installation

Ensure the HTTP client and test runner are available in the environment:

pip install requests pytest

Implementing the Validation Suite

The following implementation utilizes the built-in unittest framework. To ensure logical flow and reduce redundancy, the test cases share a created resource ID through class-level attributes.

import requests
import unittest

class ValidateEmployeeEndpoints(unittest.TestCase):
    HOST = "https://api.mock.dev/staff"

    @classmethod
    def setUpClass(cls):
        cls.shared_emp_id = None
        cls.headers = {"Content-Type": "application/"}

    def test_01_add_employee(self):
        payload = {"first_name": "Alice", "department": "Engineering"}
        resp = requests.post(self.HOST, =payload, headers=self.headers)
        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 201)
        body = resp.()
        self.assertIn("emp_id", body)
        ValidateEmployeeEndpoints.shared_emp_id = body["emp_id"]

    def test_02_fetch_specific_employee(self):
        self.assertIsNotNone(self.shared_emp_id)
        url = f"{self.HOST}/{self.shared_emp_id}"
        resp = requests.get(url, headers=self.headers)
        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 200)
        self.assertEqual(resp.().get("emp_id"), self.shared_emp_id)

    def test_03_modify_employee(self):
        self.assertIsNotNone(self.shared_emp_id)
        url = f"{self.HOST}/{self.shared_emp_id}"
        update_payload = {"department": "Product"}
        resp = requests.patch(url, =update_payload, headers=self.headers)
        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 200)
        self.assertEqual(resp.().get("department"), "Product")

    def test_04_remove_employee(self):
        self.assertIsNotNone(self.shared_emp_id)
        url = f"{self.HOST}/{self.shared_emp_id}"
        resp = requests.delete(url, headers=self.headers)
        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 204)

    def test_05_list_all_employees(self):
        resp = requests.get(self.HOST, headers=self.headers)
        self.assertEqual(resp.status_code, 200)
        self.assertIsInstance(resp.(), list)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()

Executing the Suite

Save the script as api_validation.py and execute it via the command line:

python -m unittest api_validation.py

Interpreting Outcomes

A successful run yields output resembling:

.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 5 tests in 0.450s

OK

Failures will explicitly indicate which assertion failed and the corresponding endpoint response.