replayx

Record and replay HTTP and HTTPS interactions for httpx. Run your tests fast and offline.

replayx saves real HTTP and HTTPS responses to a cassette file on the first test run. Every later run reads from the cassette. No network calls. No flaky tests. No slow CI.

import httpx
from replayx import use_cassette

with use_cassette("cassettes/github.json"):
    resp = httpx.get("https://api.github.com/users/octocat")
    assert resp.json()["login"] == "octocat"

The first run records. Later runs replay.

Why I built replayx

vcrpy brought record and replay to Python. vcrpy targets requests and the sync world. I built replayx for modern httpx code.

Feature	replayx	vcrpy
Async httpx.AsyncClient	yes	limited
Built for httpx	yes	through patches
Zero deps beyond httpx	yes (JSON)	needs PyYAML
Secret redaction for committed cassettes	yes	partial
Explicit transport API, no patching	yes	no
Modern typing with py.typed	yes	no

HTTPS and TLS

replayx works with https:// URLs the same as http://. replayx hooks into httpx at the transport layer, below TLS, so the scheme is never a special case.

• On record, httpx makes the real TLS request and replayx captures the result.
• On replay, replayx serves the response from the cassette with no network and no TLS handshake, so certificates and expiry do not matter.
• Matching tracks the scheme and the correct default port (443 for https, 80 for http), so https and http to the same host stay distinct.

replayx hooks httpx, so requests made through other clients (requests, urllib, aiohttp) are not intercepted.

Install

pip install replayx

Add YAML cassettes:

pip install "replayx[yaml]"

replayx needs Python 3.9 or newer and httpx 0.23 or newer.

Usage

Patch httpx with use_cassette

use_cassette patches httpx for the block. Your existing client code runs without changes. Sync and async both work.

import httpx
from replayx import use_cassette

async def fetch():
    async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
        return await client.get("https://api.example.com/data")

with use_cassette("cassettes/data.json"):
    resp = await fetch()

Build a transport yourself

Prefer no patching? Build a transport and pass the transport to your client. Nothing gets monkeypatched.

import httpx
from replayx import Cassette

cassette = Cassette.load("cassettes/data.json", record_mode="once")

with httpx.Client(transport=cassette.sync_transport()) as client:
    resp = client.get("https://api.example.com/data")

cassette.save()

Use cassette.async_transport() with httpx.AsyncClient for async code.

The pytest plugin

The plugin gives each test an auto-named cassette at <test-dir>/cassettes/<test-name>.json.

import httpx

def test_octocat(replayx_cassette):
    with replayx_cassette():
        resp = httpx.get("https://api.github.com/users/octocat")
        assert resp.status_code == 200

Re-record a whole run from the command line:

pytest --replayx-record=all

Set per-test defaults with the marker:

import pytest

@pytest.mark.replayx(match_on=("method", "url", "body"), filter_headers=["authorization"])
def test_create(replayx_cassette):
    with replayx_cassette():
        ...

Inline stubs, no recording

Sometimes you want to define responses in code instead of recording them. use_stubs patches httpx and serves responses from routes you declare.

import httpx
from replayx import use_stubs

with use_stubs() as router:
    router.get("https://api.example.com/users").respond(json=[{"id": 1}])
    router.post("https://api.example.com/users").respond(201, json={"id": 2})

    with httpx.Client() as client:
        assert client.get("https://api.example.com/users").json() == [{"id": 1}]

A request that matches no route raises UnhandledStubError, so unmocked calls show up at once. Routes match on method plus scheme, host, port, and path. The query string is ignored. Each route counts its calls:

with use_stubs() as router:
    route = router.get("https://api.example.com/ping").respond(text="pong")
    ...
    assert route.call_count == 1

Record modes

Mode	What happens
once (default)	Replay an existing cassette. Record everything when no cassette exists. A new request against an existing cassette raises an error.
new_episodes	Replay matches and append new interactions.
none	Replay only. No network. No writes. Good for CI.
all	Always reach the real backend and overwrite the cassette. Use to re-record.

with use_cassette("cassettes/api.json", record_mode="none"):
    ...

Match requests

Requests match on method and url by default. Query order does not affect matching. Change the rules with match_on.

with use_cassette("cassettes/api.json", match_on=("method", "path", "body")):
    ...

Available matchers: method, scheme, host, port, path, query, url (alias uri), headers, body, graphql.

GraphQL requests

GraphQL sends every operation as a POST to one URL, so raw body matching breaks on formatting. The graphql matcher compares the operation name, the variables, and the query with whitespace collapsed.

with use_cassette("cassettes/api.json", match_on=("method", "url", "graphql")):
    ...

Redact secrets

Commit cassettes without leaking credentials. Redaction runs at record time. The live response your code receives stays intact.

with use_cassette(
    "cassettes/api.json",
    filter_headers=["authorization", "set-cookie"],
    filter_query_params=["api_key", "token"],
):
    ...

Use hooks for full control. Return a changed recording, or return None to skip the recording.

from dataclasses import replace

def scrub_body(response):
    return replace(response, body=b'{"token": "REDACTED"}')

with use_cassette("cassettes/api.json", before_record_response=scrub_body):
    ...

Cassette format

Cassettes use plain JSON. YAML works with the yaml extra. Both read well in code review.

{
  "version": 1,
  "recorded_with": "replayx/0.1.0",
  "interactions": [
    {
      "request": { "method": "GET", "url": "https://api.example.com/data", "headers": [], "body": null },
      "response": { "status_code": 200, "headers": [["content-type", "application/json"]], "body": { "text": "{\"ok\":true}" } }
    }
  ]
}

replayx stores binary bodies as base64.

Contribute

I welcome contributions. Set up a dev environment:

git clone https://github.com/mkusiappiah/replayx
cd replayx
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
ruff check .
mypy

Open an issue before large changes.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.