API Test

Search Request

Add the search request #

Now that we have a valid access token, we’ll use it. Click

• Add Request

to add the next step. Name the step Search for tracks named “Up around the bend”.

This is the Spotify Search endpoint . The query string parameters say: search for tracks (type=track) matching the phrase “Up around the bend”, starting from the first result (offset=0), and return at most 5 (limit=5). Spotify URL-encodes the query phrase, so spaces become %20.

Expand the Request section, change the request method to GET, and enter the URL:

https://api.spotify.com/v1/search?q=Up%20around%20the%20bend&type=track&offset=0&limit=5

Next, add two request headers with the following key/value pairings:

• CONTENT-TYPE: application/json — declares the request body format. Strictly speaking, GET requests don’t carry a body and so this header is informational only here, but it’s polite to send and Spotify won’t object.
• AUTHORIZATION: Bearer {{custom.access_token}} — this is where the magic happens. {{custom.access_token}} expands at run time to the token we extracted in the previous step, so the chain “auth → use token” is now wired up.

This is the core of the multi-step pattern: any value extracted in step N is available by name in step N+1, N+2, etc. You can extract as many values per step as you need, and you can chain arbitrarily deep — auth, then user lookup, then resource fetch, then asserted state change, then cleanup.

Extract a track ID #

The search response is a JSON document with a tracks.items array, each entry containing a track ID, name, artist, album, and so on. We’ll extract the ID of the first matching track.

Expand the Validation section and add the following extraction:

• Extract from Response body JSON $.tracks.items[0].id as track.id.

The JSONPath $.tracks.items[0].id walks the response: start at the root ($), go into the tracks object, then into the items array, take the first element ([0]), and read its id field. JSONPath’s array syntax also supports negative indices ([-1] for the last), slices ([0:5]), and filter expressions, which is useful when you want to assert a property of a specific item rather than just the first.

In this workshop we extract the ID but don’t use it again — in a production check you’d typically add a third step that calls GET /v1/tracks/{{custom.track.id}} and asserts that the response body contains the artist and album you expect. That would catch a regression where Spotify’s catalogue changes or where the search ranking degrades.

Click < Return to test to return to the test configuration page, then click Save to save the API test.