# Automatic Property-based Testing of GraphQL APIs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.07380 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07380/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 14 Dec 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A Multi-Agent Approach for REST API Testing with Semantic Graphs and LLM-Driven Inputs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.07098/) (2024)
- [LlamaRestTest: Effective REST API Testing with Small Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.08598/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In recent years, GraphQL has become a popular way to expose web APIs. With its raise of adoption in industry, the quality of GraphQL APIs must be also assessed, as with any part of a software system, and preferably in an automated manner. However, there is currently a lack of methods to automatically generate tests to exercise GraphQL APIs. In this paper, we propose a method for automatically producing GraphQL queries to test GraphQL APIs. This is achieved using a property-based approach to create a generator for queries based on the GraphQL schema of the system under test. Our evaluation on a real world software system shows that this approach is both effective, in terms of finding real bugs, and efficient, as a complete schema can be covered in seconds. In addition, we evaluate the fault finding capability of the method when seeding known faults. 73% of the seeded faults where found, with room for improvements with regards to domain specific behavior, a common oracle challenge in automatic test generation.