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Functional Testing Quickstart

Functional Testing Quickstart

This guide walks you through running your first functional test with NAT: sign up, get your API key, run a functional scan, and view visual regression, accessibility, and performance results — all in under 10 minutes.

Functional testing is available on Pro and Team plans. Start a free trial (opens in a new tab) — no credit card required for the first 14 days.

Sign up and get your API key

Navigate to app.nat-testing.io/signup (opens in a new tab) and create your account. Once your account is provisioned, retrieve your API key:

  1. Go to app.nat-testing.io/dashboard (opens in a new tab)
  2. Click Settings → API Keys
  3. Copy your key (starts with nat_pk_)

Export it as an environment variable for use in all examples below:

export NAT_API_KEY="nat_pk_your_api_key_here"
⚠️

Store your API key securely. Never commit it to source control — use environment variables or a secrets manager instead.

Install NAT (CLI users)

If you prefer the command-line interface, install the NAT engine:

pip install nat-engine
nat auth login --key $NAT_API_KEY
nat --version

Python 3.9+ is required. Use Python 3.11+ for best performance. See the Installation guide for Docker and virtual environment setup.

Run your first functional test

Choose the CLI or API approach:

# Run functional tests on your app
nat scan --url https://app.example.com --mode functional
 
# Run security + functional tests together
nat scan --url https://app.example.com --mode full \
  --spec ./openapi.json
 
# Fail pipeline if performance score < 70 or accessibility violations exist
nat scan --url https://app.example.com --mode functional \
  --fail-on performance:70 --fail-on accessibility:any

Response:

{
  "scan_id": "scan_ft_abc123xyz",
  "status": "running",
  "mode": "functional",
  "created_at": "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z"
}

Save the scan_id — you will need it to poll for results.

Poll for scan completion

The CLI handles polling automatically. Results print to the terminal when the scan completes:

nat scan --url https://app.example.com --mode functional
# NAT automatically polls and prints results when complete

View visual regression results

Once the scan is complete, fetch the visual regression report to see before/after screenshots and pixel-diff analysis:

nat results --scan $SCAN_ID --type visual-regression
# Or open the interactive HTML report:
nat results --scan $SCAN_ID --export html --open

View accessibility results

Fetch the full WCAG compliance report with violation details and per-page scores:

nat results --scan $SCAN_ID --type accessibility

View performance metrics

Retrieve Core Web Vitals and performance scores for all tested pages:

nat results --scan $SCAN_ID --type performance

Running security and functional tests together

Use "mode": "full" (API) or --mode full (CLI) to run both security scanning and functional testing in a single scan run:

nat scan --url https://app.example.com \
  --mode full \
  --spec ./openapi.json \
  --fail-on high

The combined scan result contains both tasks (security findings) and visual_regression, accessibility, and performance sub-reports.

Integrate with CI/CD

Add functional testing to your pipeline with a single step:

# GitHub Actions example
- name: Run NAT functional tests
  run: |
    pip install nat-engine
    nat scan \
      --url ${{ secrets.STAGING_URL }} \
      --mode functional \
      --fail-on accessibility:critical \
      --fail-on performance:60
  env:
    NAT_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.NAT_API_KEY }}

Use the GitHub Action reference for the official nat-action which handles installation, caching, and result annotation automatically.

Next steps

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