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I'm building an automated test suite to integration/feature test my organization's Stripe implementation within a GitLab CI pipeline. We're running Laravel 8 and using phpunit for testing.

Within this suite I'm testing both happy and non-happy paths (i.e. I want to test valid and invalid payment details).

At the moment the suite is just running locally and is using a Stripe account that dedicated for testing using Stripe's test mode. I've been using Stripe's testing tokens to create different types of payments and its all working good so far. However, I want the test suite to run quickly within a CI pipeline, and I found stripe-mock as an alternative. stripe-mock claims it makes,

test suites integrating with Stripe faster and less brittle.

However, stripe-mock notes that a current limitation is,

Testing for specific responses and errors is currently not supported. It will return a success response instead of the desired error response.

So based on this I've got two questions:

  1. What is the use case of stripe-mock if it will always return a successful response regardless of the validity of the payment?
  2. Is there another preferred way integration testing a Stripe implementation, or is what I'm currently doing the best approach?

With regards to my second question I believe my options are to:

  1. Keep using Stripe's test mode.
  2. Build a happy-path suite using stripe-mock, and a non-happy-path suite using Stripe's test mode.
  3. Build a happy-path suite using stripe-mock, and just manual test non-happy paths. ( I don't really see this as a valid option for me as I would like smoke tests for all Stripe related functionality)
  4. Something else?

Thanks in advance!

Oliver Lewis
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2 Answers2

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For future folks who find this thread, here's an example of how to setup your Rails test environment and use stripe-ruby-mock to test the Stripe API without accessing the production instance:

https://betterprogramming.pub/test-driven-development-with-stripe-and-ruby-on-rails-cfc81e3e261

mcmaddox
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What is the use case of stripe-mock if it will always return a successful response regardless of the validity of the payment?

It reminds me of the time I pretended to mock up MongoDB. For the sake of the answer, I won't tell the story but believe me when I say I was too naive to believe it.

In my experience, I think stripe-mock can help you execute tests faster but not build confidence in your tests. You have to decide what your test should provide you with. If you ask me, confidence > velocity all the time.

That said, It doesn't mean I will give up on making test executions to be faster.

Is there another preferred way of integration testing a Stripe implementation, or is what I'm currently doing the best approach?

Sure. Implement a Proxy and cache requests and responses. It might interest you: Mountebank

How would I do it?

  • Run a Mountebank container enabling persistence to file

  • Enable the proxy mode "proxyOnce"

  • Tune up accurate predicateGenerators

  • Set up integration tests to send requests to Mountebank instead of Stripe

  • Execute Contract tests to record requests and Stripe responses.

    Note: Don't test the whole API, only those features you need

  • Save the Mountebank configuration to a file I can version.

  • Run all my tests

4th and 5th can be performed once in a while from a different pipeline (let's say daily overnight). The pipeline keeps stubs up-to-date and ensures the Mountebank server responds according to the current version of the Stripe API contract.

Laiv
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