Stripe API testing automation

Question

Background

I am integrating stripe API into my site to take one off payments. My site will be API first on server side with a separate web and mobile front end. I am working on the API server side code. I will eventually use stripe payment pages to take credit card payments. I am trying to automate the testing of my APIs and am bamboozled by the documentation (which are thorough) as I just can't see what steps to take next.

My server side initiates a call with stripe using stripe sdk to create a stripe Session object - this contains a URL to redirect to checkout.stripe.com/pay/..., a success URL when payment is successful and a cancel URL (these I set to handle the callback).

Problem

I can automate in Postman all my API calls from Browse Products, Select Product, Place Order but the next step I am stuck. After Placing Order I get back the stripe session but how can I mimick making the payment with stripe for the session and then call my Success URL ?

When the site is complete I will redirect the UI to stripe to take payments but I am testing and completing the back end flow first.

I have copied and pasted the session URL which is returned by the stripe Session object to bring up the page in a browser and used Dev tools on Chrome to inspect Network to see which APIs are being called by stripe in an attempt to reproduce and I can see a POST to stripe.com/api/payment_methods and I can see the posted values but I can't reproduce this in Postman. Also, the documentation (https://stripe.com/docs/api/payment_methods/create) says

"Instead of creating a PaymentMethod directly, we recommend using the PaymentsIntents API to accept a payment immediately"

Question

Which stripe APIs do I need to call to automate the flow from a stripe Session object to make a payment and then check that it was successful? Payment Methods? Make a Charge? Payments Intents? ...and how. Happy to be pointed to the documentation if you can help me understand the flow.

TIA

Answer 1

Checkout is a Stripe product that looks like a "box" and you can't know (and shouldn't need to know) what happens inside. It is created for the purpose that merchants won't have to think about what's being done under the hood.

Speaking from an automation perspective, you can try to reproduce the whole process but there's no guarantee it won't change in the future, and it could leave you with more problems later.

For options to reproduce:

1. The closest way is simulating browser filling and submission, using automated browser tools (ie Selenium). But it's not as straightforward as PostMan. Generally you would want to simulate every browser action that a human could do.
2. Or you can try to accomplish the same with the logs and events you receive on Stripe's Dashboard, when you test a Checkout Session by yourself. From now there are 3 requests.

And your goal is to receive the same 5 events in Webhook:

TBH I recommend to reconsider the need of this test, to see if it worth your efforts.