HTTP Methods

Pingward supports all standard HTTP methods for testing your APIs.

Supported Methods

Method	Description	Use Case
GET	Retrieve data	Health checks, read endpoints
POST	Submit data	Create operations, form submissions
PUT	Replace data	Full update operations
PATCH	Partial update	Partial modifications
DELETE	Remove data	Deletion endpoints
HEAD	Headers only	Lightweight availability checks
OPTIONS	CORS preflight	Testing CORS configuration

Choosing the Right Method

GET Requests

Best for:

• Health check endpoints
• Read-only API endpoints
• Endpoints that return status information

GET https://api.example.com/health

POST Requests

Best for:

• Testing endpoints that create resources
• Validating request body handling
• Authentication endpoints

POST https://api.example.com/auth/login
Content-Type: application/json

{"username": "test", "password": "test"}

HEAD Requests

Best for:

• Lightweight availability checks (no body transferred)
• Checking if resources exist
• Validating headers without downloading content

Method-Specific Considerations

Request Body

• GET and HEAD requests typically don't have a body
• POST, PUT, and PATCH usually require a body
• DELETE may or may not have a body

Idempotency

Consider how often your test runs. For non-idempotent operations (like POST that creates records), you may want to:

• Use a test/sandbox environment
• Clean up created resources
• Use special test endpoints that don't persist data