1. Project Overview

AREX

An API testing tool for traffic recording and playback, providing an automated regression testing platform based on real requests and data.

2. Open Source License

Licensed under Apache-2.0

3. Screenshots

4. Feature Overview

Platform Advantages

Low-cost

No code intrusion and virtually zero integration costs. No need to write test cases. High coverage can be maintained even with massive volumes of online requests. Instrumentation code is simple, with minimal performance overhead.

Diverse Testing Support

Supports write validation and verification of databases, message queues, and Redis data. It can even verify runtime in-memory data, without generating dirty data during testing.

Stable Test Case Execution

Supports automatic data collection and Mock for various mainstream technology frameworks. See: arex_java. It also supports local time and caching, accurately restoring the production execution environment during playback.

Rapid Reproduction of Online Issues

Supports one-click local debugging, enabling rapid local troubleshooting of online issues.

Safe and Stable

Code isolation is also supported, along with health management. When the system is under heavy load, data collection frequency is intelligently reduced or disabled.

Excellent Functional Testing Support

Supports test scripts and simple editing of collected data to implement tests with fixed test scenarios, avoiding the need to prepare large amounts of test data.

Platform Features

Solve the Problem of Difficult-to-Reproduce Online Issues

Online issues can be quickly reproduced and debugged in local testing and development environments.

Eliminate Environment Differences

Powerful Mock mechanism supporting Mock time and cached data.

Mock Data Is Editable

Meet Various Testing Requirements

Reduce Playback Noise

Supports global-level and API-level node exclusion configurations, as well as unordered array comparisons.

Intelligent Playback Reports

Aggregates differences based on JSON message paths, significantly improving troubleshooting efficiency. Covers all difference scenarios without overlooking any potential risks.

Supports write traffic validation without generating dirty data

Supports validation of data stored in databases, message queues, Redis, and other systems. It even supports validating in-memory runtime data, ensuring that no dirty data is generated during testing.

Testing Support

Standard API Testing

Send requests to APIs and evaluate their responses to ensure they meet specified requirements and function as expected. Features include developing, executing, validating, and managing test cases.

Comparison Testing

Send identical requests to APIs in different environments and compare their responses to verify whether the APIs function as expected after backend system restructuring or upgrades.

Regression Testing

Record real-world online user traffic and replay it in a test environment to achieve automated regression testing. This addresses challenges such as the difficulty of writing regression test cases, constructing test data, and low testing efficiency.

5. Tech Stack

Configure the Development Environment

Backend Projects

To make debugging more convenient, we can first deploy an AREX instance in our local environment using docker-compose. We can then use the DB and Redis from this environment as our development environment.

Front-end project

Development environment

Tech Stack

• React 18

• AntDesign 5

• Zustand

• Emotion

• i18n

• pnpm

• ...

Directory Structure

.
└── packages
    ├── arex                            Main project package
    ├── arex-core                       Common component package - provides heavyweight components encapsulating business logic
    ├── arex-common                     Core component package - provides AREX infrastructure components, reusable stateless components, utility functions, and more
    ├── arex-request                    Request package - provides support for sending HTTP REST requests from browsers
    └── arex-lite                       Lightweight edition - provides the AREX project structure and component demo examples

More content, please refer to README.md document