imitate

imitate is a REST API mocking tool. It offers a simple workflow for:

• Proxying an existing API;
• Caching requests into a persistent file;
• Using that file to stub the real API.

imitate is useful for end-to-end testing, offline development, and other situations where you want to access a close (but no cigar) copy of your real REST API. It is agnostic to your choice of backend or frontend.

Installation

Install it like any other node package, if using inside a project:

$ npm install imitate

To use the command-line API (coming soon), install it globally:

$ npm install -g imitate

Usage

Node API

proxyServer

To instantiate a proxyServer:

var proxyServer = require('imitate').proxyServer;
 
var proxy = proxyServer({
  output: 'endpoints.json',
  url: 'https://api.github.com/',
});

This will start a proxyServer on http://localhost:4000, which will return the results from pinging https://api.github.com/ while also writing them in a file called 'endpoints.json' in the current working directory. See below for additional options.

You can stop it like any other express server:

proxy.close(/* callback */);

mockServer

To instantiate a mockServer:

var mockServer = require('imitate').mockServer;
 
var mock = mockServer({
  input: 'endpoints.json',
});

This will start a mockServer on http://localhost:4000, which will use endpoints.json to imitate all the previously stored endpoints. See below for additional options.

You can stop it like any other express server:

mock.close(/* callback */);

Command-line API

Coming soon!

Options

proxyServer

You can start a proxyServer with the following options:

var proxyServer = require('imitate').proxyServer;
 
var proxy = proxyServer({
  // Mandatory parameters.
  url: 'https://api.github.com/', // URL to proxy.
 
  // Optional parameters. The values specified here are the defaults.
  port: 4000, // Port on which to start the server.
  host: 'localhost', // Hostname for the server.
  output: 'endpoints.json', // Output file in which the responses will be cached.
  silent: false, // Pass in 'true' to silence console.logs.
});

mockServer

You can start a mockServer with the following options:

var mockServer = require('imitate').mockServer;
 
var proxy = mockServer({
  // All optional parameters. The values specified here are the defaults.
  port: 4000, // Port on which to start the server.
  host: 'localhost', // Hostname for the server.
  input: 'endpoints.json', // Input file containing the cached responses.
  silent: false, // Pass in 'true' to silence console.logs.
});

License

MIT.