Show HN: OpenAPI mocks that don't suck – realistic test data, quick setup

Hi HN!

I'm Ankit, the founder of Beeceptor, a request mocking and intercepting tool. This time, I built something new to address a pain I’ve personally felt (and heard from dozens of QA, frontend, and platform teams): making OpenAPI specs actually useful during development.

API contracts just sit around as docs often. What if you could 'activate' them, instantly have a realistic, hosted mock server-with contract validation, smart test data, and early usage?

So I made _Mockaroo for OpenAPI_, but with brains. It spins up a hosted mock server from your spec in one click. It:

- Generates sensible context-aware, test data using FakerJS (e.g., age returns realistic numbers, not 10000) - Validates incoming requests against your contract definition and returns detailed, actionable error messages. - Supports JSON, binary, CRUD style API responses. - Gives a HOSTed API server URL, that's ready in a few seconds.

- Helps frontend teams start testing before the backend is ready - Gives QAs a place to play, verify and run performance tests. - Enables the best developer experience, requiring no account setup and a working mock API server for experiments, and API cost savings.

No local setup, no writing custom mock rules, no fuss. Just activate your OpenAPI spec, and your API starts “working” in seconds.

Besides, Beeceptor shows live request logs, where responses can be overridden.

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Would love your thoughts, feedback, or use cases I haven’t thought of yet. Happy to share more technical details if there's interest.

Thanks for reading!