Load Testing GraphQL APIs

Overview

With LoadForge, testing GraphQL APIs becomes a breeze as you can utilize standard HTTP POST requests to send GraphQL queries.

In this documentation, we'll show you how to create a load test to query the missions from the publicly available SpaceX GraphQL API. The examples provided here can be adapted to test any GraphQL API. Furthermore, we'll cover how to authenticate your GraphQL requests.

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Basic Example

First, let's start with a fundamental example. Here's a standard GraphQL query that requests the mission IDs and names from the SpaceX API:

{
  missions {
    id
    name
  }
}

Now, let's take a look at how you can implement this query for use in a LoadForge test. With this example, you'll see how straightforward it is to integrate your own GraphQL queries.

import time
from locust import HttpUser, task, between

class QuickstartUser(HttpUser):
    wait_time = between(3, 5)

    @task(1)
    def index_page(self):
        query = '''
            {
              missions {
                id
                name
              }
            }
            '''

        response = self.client.post(
            "/graphql",
            name="GraphQL",
            json={"query": query }
        )

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Authenticating GraphQL Requests

In many instances, you may need to authenticate your requests to the GraphQL API. Here's how you can set custom headers for authentication:

    response = self.client.post(
        "/graphql",
        name="GraphQL",
        headers={
            "Accept": "application/graphql",
            "Authorization": "<Authorization-Token>"
        },
        json={"query": query}
    )

If your testing requires obtaining an authorization token dynamically, you can automate this process with the on_start method. This ensures that all the requests during your test have the required authentication header:

    def on_start(self):
        # Send a login request
        response = requests.post("http://mysite.com/login", {"username": "user", "password": "pass"})

        # Extract the "token" from the response header
        self.client.headers.update({'Authorization': response.headers.get('token')})

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