18. API Testing with Playwright

Overview

request context (APIRequestContext) Playwright ships a full HTTP client independent of any browser — meaning you can make API calls without opening a page at all, useful both for pure API testing and for fast test-data setup (create data via API instead of clicking through slow UI forms). Or via the pytest-playwright plugin's built-in request fixture: extra_http_headers=...) What it does: Creates an APIRequestContext — an isolated HTTP client session for making API calls. Types/params: calls, e.g. set once instead of repeating the full domain every call this context, commonly used for auth tokens: {"Authorization": "Bearer <token>"} directly into Chapter 20) Pointers: Like BrowserContext, an APIRequestContext is isolated — separate contexts don't share cookies/headers, letting you cleanly simulate different authenticated users in the same test file.

• base_url (string, optional) — prefix applied to relative URLs in subsequent
• extra_http_headers (dict, optional) — headers sent with every request from
• storage_state (string or dict, optional) — reuse saved cookies/auth state (ties

import pytest
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright