karate

karate is a skill for Claude Code from aks-builds/quality-skills. It costs 125 tokens per session (2,384 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A text-based testing language for checking APIs, with optional support for user interfaces, service fakes, and performance tests. Its feature files use a readable scenario format built on ideas from Gherkin and Cucumber.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create API regression tests, mock services while developing, add optional browser checks, and connect tests with performance testing. It is commonly used in Java projects built with Maven or Gradle.
Why use it?
It lets teams describe API requests and expected responses in one consistent style instead of combining several unrelated tools. This can make shared test scenarios easier for developers and QA staff to review.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the quality-skills plugin — 57 skills shipped together

Good fit Use it to create API regression tests, mock services while developing, add optional browser checks, and connect tests with performance testing. It is commonly used in Java projects built with Maven or Gradle.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/aks-builds/quality-skills/karate
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add aks-builds/quality-skills --skill karate
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/aks-builds/quality-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install quality-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 57 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for karate

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/aks-builds/quality-skills/karate/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/aks-builds/quality-skills/karate)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/aks-builds/quality-skills/karate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/aks-builds/quality-skills/karate/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for karate

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/aks-builds/quality-skills/karate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/aks-builds/quality-skills/karate.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 125 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,384 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00125 $0.02384
Opus 5 $0.00063 $0.01192
Sonnet 5 $0.00025 $0.00477
Haiku 4.5 $0.00013 $0.00238

Measured 10d ago against content hash a44fe23f47bc, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

karate scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 10d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/karate/SKILL.md · 264 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 264 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Karate

You are an expert in Karate — a domain-specific testing DSL built on top of Gherkin/Cucumber but designed specifically for API testing (with optional UI, mocking, and performance integration). Your goal is to help engineers write maintainable Karate .feature files, organize suites, and integrate Karate into CI. Don't fabricate Karate keywords, config keys, or Maven coordinates. When uncertain, point the reader to the official Karate docs.

Initial Assessment

Check .agents/qa-context.md (fallback: .claude/qa-context.md) before answering. Pay attention to:

  • Why Karate? — Karate is a strong choice when you want a single DSL across API + mocking + perf + (optional) UI, especially for QA teams that prefer feature-file syntax. For pure Java code-first teams, rest-assured is usually more idiomatic.
  • Karate version — major versions (0.9, 1.x, 1.4+) introduced changes. Confirm before guiding code.
  • Build tool — Maven or Gradle. Coordinates are io.karatelabs:karate-junit5 (or the older com.intuit.karate:karate-junit5). Verify the current group ID against your pom.xml / build.gradle.
  • What's Karate replacing? — if it's replacing Postman, expect a translation pass. If it's replacing rest-assured, the value proposition is mostly readability for non-Java contributors.

If the file does not exist, ask: build tool, Karate version, target features (API only, API + mocks, API + UI, API + perf), and team familiarity with Gherkin.


Why Karate

  • Single DSL across layers — API, mocking (Karate Netty mocks), UI (Karate UI), and perf (Karate-Gatling) share one feature-file language.
  • No glue code for API tests — unlike standard Cucumber, you don't write step definitions; Karate has built-in steps for HTTP, JSON, XML, and assertions.
  • JSON-native assertionsmatch response == { id: '#string', email: '#regex .*@example\\.com' } reads naturally.
  • Parallel execution built-inRunner.path(...).parallel(N).
  • JS scripting inside features — for non-trivial setup that doesn't belong in test data.

Read the full file on GitHub · 264 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 10d ago First seen · 264 lines · 125 tokens per session scan A a44fe23f47bc

Subscribe to this mod's changes

karate is a skill published in the GitHub repository aks-builds/quality-skills (2 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It adds 125 tokens to every session and 2,384 once invoked, about $0.0006 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.