Standing up a fake version of an API that returns canned or configurable responses. It lets frontend, mobile, or downstream service teams develop in parallel with the real backend or test edge cases that are hard to reproduce live.
API Mocks come in flavors: static (return fixed JSON), dynamic (return responses based on request input), recorded (replay captured real traffic). Tools include Postman Mock Servers, Mockoon, Mockaroo, WireMock, and MSW (browser-side). Mock APIs let frontends ship before the backend exists, let QA test error states that don't naturally happen, and let CI tests run without depending on flaky third-party services.
Building a React frontend against a Mockoon mock that returns 30 customer records, then swapping to the real Django API when it's ready with no code changes.
API Mocking removes 'waiting for the backend' as the most common cause of frontend delivery delays. Parallel development is dramatically faster than sequential.
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