DEV-302 Development

API & Contract Testing

Move API testing beyond happy-path status code checks into assertions that actually catch breaking changes. Learners validate against OpenAPI schemas, write consumer-driven contracts with provider verification, manage test data and auth flows, and decide precisely where mocking helps and where it hides real defects. Every technique is drilled against a running multi-service application.

B3Practitioner

6modules

42skill atoms

2role journeys

Curriculum

What this course covers.

6 modules, 42 named skill atoms. Expand any module to see them.

1Request & Response Assertions7 skill atoms

status and header assertionsbody shape vs body valuesidempotency and replay checkspagination and ordering guaranteeserror payload contractstimeout and retry semanticsREST Assured and Playwright APIRequest

2Schema & Spec Validation7 skill atoms

OpenAPI as the source of truthJSON Schema validation in testsadditionalProperties strictnessnullable vs optional fieldsspec drift detection in CIadditive vs breaking change rulesversioning and deprecation headers

3Consumer-Driven Contracts7 skill atoms

Pact consumer test authoringpact broker and can-i-deployprovider verification runsprovider states setupcontract versioning and tagscontract vs integration test boundaryhandling many consumers of one provider

4Test Data Management7 skill atoms

seeded deterministic fixturesfactories over shared golden datacleanup and teardown disciplinetenant and account isolationtime-dependent and expiring dataephemeral environment provisioningproduction-like volume for pagination tests

5Mocks, Stubs & Auth Flows7 skill atoms

WireMock and MSW stubbingchoosing the stub boundaryrecord and replay staleness trapsOAuth2 client credentials and authorization code flowstoken expiry and refresh pathsservice accounts vs user tokensasserting 401 and 403 behaviour

6AI-Generated API Tests7 skill atoms

generating cases from an OpenAPI specassertion depth vs case countnegative and boundary cases the model skipsgenerated fixtures leaking real credentialsmaintaining a generated collection over releasesmodels proposing edge cases for human selectionverifying generated contracts against live behaviour

Where it fits

DEV-302 in the role journeys.

This course appears in 2 of our 45 role journeys. Here is what a learner takes immediately before and after it in each.

QA / Test Engineer (AI-era)

Practitioner stage

DEV-301→DEV-302→AI-311

Backend Engineer

Practitioner stage

DEV-201→DEV-302→DEV-214

Roles this course serves

Backend Engineer QA / Test Engineer (AI-era)

The capability ladder

This course is authored to band B3.

Every course we run is written to one rung of the CASI ladder, so a plan can be assembled to take a team from where they are to where they need to be.

What do B1–B6 mean?The CASI Capability Ladder — click to expand

Every course targets a band on the CASI Capability Ladder — our six-band proficiency scale, anchored to open standards (O*NET, ESCO, NICE, NIST AI RMF, Bloom's). A band tells you how deep a course goes, and what evidence proves it.

What the learner can doTypical evidence

AwareUnderstands concepts and vocabulary; uses tools with guidance

Knowledge checks

FoundationPerforms standard tasks correctly in familiar contexts

Guided labs, autograded exercises

PractitionerDelivers complete pieces of work independently

Scenario labs, proctored hands-on exams

ProfessionalHandles production-grade complexity, trade-offs and failure modes

Break-fix drills, design defenses

AdvancedEngineers systems end-to-end under constraints; leads others

Rubric-scored capstones, vivas

ExpertSets direction; recognised authority across teams

Portfolio + panel evaluation

A note on B6. Courses in this catalog target B1–B5. B6 is not taught — it is recognised, through a portfolio and a panel, once someone is setting direction for others. Every journey here is built to land a learner at B5.

Other Development courses at this level.

DEV-102

Run DEV-302 for your team.

This course runs at several lengths depending on how deep you need to go and how much of it your people already have. Tell us who is being trained and we will scope it.

Add it to a training plan Talk to our team Check your team’s level free

API & Contract Testing

What this course covers.

DEV-302 in the role journeys.

QA / Test Engineer (AI-era)

Backend Engineer

Roles this course serves

This course is authored to band B3.

Other Development courses at this level.

Object-Oriented Design & Clean Code

Data Structures & Algorithms for Working Engineers

Enterprise Java with Spring Boot

MERN Stack Development

MEAN Stack Development

Android Development with Kotlin

Run DEV-302 for your team.