Software quality and visibility services company SmartBear has created two new services designed to ‘fundamentally change’ how both Application Programming Interface (API) tests and related functional tests are performed. As they sound, API tests are designed to assess whether API glueing points and interconnections are forged correctly so that the API itself able to deliver on its ‘contract’ i.e. its core raison d’être. Functional testing on the other hand assesses whether an application feature works as, designed in relation to the software requirements process, which should also reflect and mirror the business needs. SmartBear says it can test for both by integrating SmartBear HaloAI, an AI-driven technology that shoulders the automation of repetitive and error-prone tasks, reduces manual intervention in traditional software development and testing methods.
According to magical analyst house Gartner, by 2025, 75% of developers will use generative AI to learn new software development skills and, in this case, to augment and enhance them.
“Our product development goal is to revolutionise software quality for our customers through smart automation built into our popular tools,” said Dan Faulkner, chief product officer at SmartBear. “Customers face ongoing downward pressure on quality with expectations for speedier releases, resource constraints and adoption of AI development tools that generate code quality challenges.”
API contract tests
Faulkner points to new functions and says that AI-augmented contract testing automates the creation and maintenance of API contract tests while integrating with developer tools and maintaining current tests with ongoing code changes.
The company’s own TestComplete AI test data generation technology promises to enable the creation of extensive customised data sets through ‘simple’ commands, catering to the nuanced needs of regulated industries. This, insists Faulkner and team, streamlines workflows and improves the quality of code and test data.
“The expanded integration of HaloAI across SmartBear’s hubs enhances its product offerings [and underlines its work] in AI-driven development,” said Francisco Moreno Sanz, principal quality engineer at Sngular, a SmartBear implementation partner known for its work in CI/CD workflow configuration and its adoption of DevSecOps, MLOps and GitOps. “With HaloAI powering the creation of API contract tests, SmartBear API Hub will allow us to accelerate development cycles, ensure our APIs are always up to date and boost developer productivity and code quality.”
Tools into pools
SmartBear says it is connecting teams’ tools and functionality pools in solution hubs, featuring HaloAI. SmartBear PactFlow is integrating into the organisation’s API Hub, delivering APIs with capabilities built for designing, documenting and testing APIs with zero context switching. Equally and also stemming from the company’s own stack with SmartBear TestComplete, this service is also integrating into Test Hub to manage, automate and execute all tests in one place.
With the (obviously) ubiquitous use of APIs being used in modern cloud computing envioronments that are increasingly intelligently dissagregated through their use of containers and microservices, the ability to apply AI to the coalface of API functionality testing makes sense from the get-go. As one of the more recognisable names in the API testing space that doesn’t seek to move too far out of its core competancy zone, perhaps SmartBear is among the more qualified to be deploying these kinds of functions today – especially in zones where AI-driven testing sits over mission-critical (or indeeed life-critical) applications.
Smarter than the average bear? Probably, let’s just hope for no boo-boos.