Introduction
============

Targets
-------
Preacher aims to automate tests using real backends: neither mocks nor sandboxes.
Supporting both automation and real backends has been challenging.

Preacher prefers:

- Be declarative
    - To keep test cases readable, coding should be avoided.
- Be flexible
    - Real backends causes fuzzy behavior.
      Matcher-based validation allow fuzziness caused by real backends.
- Be CI friendly
    - CI tools are basic automation ways.
      CLI applications and file-based test scenarios are suitable for CI.
- Be suitable for Simple GET requests
    - Testing with real backends often targets data fetching
      rather than HTTP interactions such as authorization.
      Development for complex HTTP interactions is less priored.

Comparison to similar tools
---------------------------

- `Postman`_ gives rich insights on Web APIs.
  On the other hand, test cases are written in JavaScript,
  which is very flexible but not declarative.
  Additionally, the continuous automation is complicated and overdoing:
  writing test codes in Postman GUI, exporting and running them by `Newman`_.
- `Tavern`_ is more suitable for testing HTTP interactions.
  It seems to be more suitable for testing simple systems
  or testing without real backends than Preacher because of simple validators.

License
-------

Preacher is released under terms of `MIT License`_.

    .. include:: ../../LICENSE

.. _Postman: https://www.getpostman.com/
.. _Newman: https://github.com/postmanlabs/newman
.. _Tavern: https://tavern.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
.. _MIT License: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT