greendale

#Idea

API testing is incredibly important but typically left neglected in most small to mid-sized team projects. Tools like Postman and Insomnia exist to help encourage and bridge that gap, but these tools are their own fish tanks and require developers to break out of their normal tools & flows in order to work with them. Even so, something like a Postman Collection is updated after the fact — if at all — which means that the main source of API tests are lagging behind, out of date, and/or incorrect.

The idea with Greendale is to embed the experience and benefits of visually building & interacting with your API directly into VSCode. (Same fish tank.) On top of that, Greendale allows a developer to synchronize its Viewer-based tests with a greendale.js file, which is meant to be checked into source control. Any tests within this file will be loaded & usable within other Viewer sessions. This allows all team members to share & maintain immediate access to the latest tests for their APIs — and review changes to those tests.

Finally, a greendale CLI (TODO) can discover & execute the same greendale.js test files. This completes the chain, as it allows developers to skip the Viewer altogether yet still be able to integrate Greendale test suites into their day-to-day toolchain.

The CLI allows for easy stepping stones to a GitHub Action and a GitHub App, both of which shortcut the "toolchain integration" phase.

#Setup

# prepare
$ bun install
$ npm run vscode:build

$ cd packages/vscode-greendale
$ code .

In the new VSCode window, enter the Run and Debug pane & click the green Play button (▶️) in the top bar. This launches a new Development Host VSCode window.

In the Development Host, open the /example workspace provided.

Then run CMDSHIFTP to launch Command Palette & run the Open Greendale Viewer command.

The tests within the /example/greendale.js file will be loaded within the

#TODO

The remaining items are achievable & within reach, but left off due to time.

• HTTP UI/Viewer within VSCode
  • Construct requests
  • View responses
  • Save requests to greendale.js file
  • Load requests from greendale.js file
  • View recent requests history
  • Custom Headers
  • Request query parameters
  • Request Body (text-based only)
  • Support any Request body (file, multipart-form, binary)
  • ENV variables
  • $BASEURL handling
  • Request collections / groups
  • Prepend $BASEURL if request is /path-only
• Request & Response Validations
  • Sync validations with test file(s)
  • Show error toast w/ failures
  • Report & visualize hierarchy
  • CodeMirror / Intellisense
  • You can currently paste this into a Validations textbox:

    // Note: Open in Devtools
    console.log('Request:', req);
    
    if (req.method !== 'POST') {
      throw new Error('not a POST request!');
    }

• CLI test runner
  • ~> reserved packages/greendale
  • Ideally, npx greendale in any project
  • Auto-runs any/all greendale.js files in the project
• GitHub Action
  • Uses the CLI & reports results
• GitHub App
  • Automates the Action
• Prettify the Viewer ui/colors