Rest API Testing from commandline - rest

Question

I am preparing a SDK, and SDK as of now, does not have CI system separately.
I want to test some REST endpoints which should be available when the user uses SDK to create the software and try to run with our framework.
I have written all the manual steps in shell script and planning to put the script as crontab to run it every few hours.
Now, for rest end point testing, I was thinking of just using curl and checking if we getting data back. but this can turn into a lot of work,as we expand the functionality. I looked into frisby framework which kind of suits my needs.
Is there any recommendation for allowing me to test rest services when the framework software is started.

Answer 1

Probably swat is exactly what you need. Reasons :
This is DSL for web, rest services test automation
it uses curl command line API to create http requests
it is both DSL and command line tool to run test scenarios written on DSL
it is configurable both from bash style scripts and general configs
it is very easy to start with
probably in your case curl based test cases could be easily converted into swat DSL format
(*) disclosure - I am the author of swat.

Answer 2

I have created a very small bash script to test JSON APIs which might be useful. It uses jq and curl as dependencies. curl for making request and jq for JSON processing.It is only designed to test JSON APIs.
Link: api-test
Every API call you want to run is stored in a JSON file with format below:
{
"name": "My API test",
"testCases": {
"test_case_1": {
"path": "/path_1",
"method": "POST",
"description": "Best POST api",
"body": {
"value": 1
},
"header": {
"X-per": "1"
}
},
}
"url": "http://myapi.com"
}
To run a test case:
api-test -f test.json run test_case_1
api-test -f test.json run all # run all API call at once.
It will produce output in an organized way
Running Case: test_case_1
Response:
200 OK
{
"name": "Ram",
"full_name": "Ram Shah"
}
META:
{
"ResponseTime": "0.078919s",
"Size": "235 Bytes"
}
It also supports automated testing of API with jq JSON comparison and normal equality/subset comparisons.