wiremock-standalone-docker

WireMock Standalone Docker Skill

Overview

Provides patterns for running WireMock as a standalone Docker container to mock external APIs during integration and end-to-end testing. Runs WireMock as a separate service that simulates real API behavior for testing HTTP clients, retry logic, and error handling.

When to Use

Use when you need to:

• Mock external APIs during integration or end-to-end testing
• Simulate error conditions (timeouts, 5xx, rate limiting) without real services
• Test HTTP client configurations, retry logic, and error handling
• Create portable, reproducible test environments
• Validate API contracts before implementing the real service

Instructions

Step 1: Set Up Docker Compose

Create a docker-compose.yml with WireMock 3.5.2, port mapping, and volume mounts for mappings and files:

version: "3.8"
services:
  wiremock:
    image: wiremock/wiremock:3.5.2
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./wiremock:/home/wiremock
    command: ["--global-response-templating"]

Step 2: Create Directory Structure

Create the WireMock configuration directories:

wiremock/
├── mappings/   # JSON stub definitions
└── __files/   # Response body files

Step 3: Define API Mappings

Create JSON stub files in wiremock/mappings/ for each scenario:

• Success: Return 200 with JSON body
• Not Found: Return 404
• Server Error: Return 500
• Timeout: Use fixedDelayMilliseconds
• Rate Limit: Return 429 with Retry-After header

Step 4: Start WireMock

docker compose up -d

Step 5: Verify WireMock is Running

curl http://localhost:8080/__admin/mappings

Expected: Returns empty array {"mappings":[]} if no stubs loaded, or your stub definitions. If you get connection refused, check that the container is running: docker compose ps

Step 6: Configure HTTP Client

Point your application to http://localhost:8080 (or http://wiremock:8080 in Docker network) instead of the real API.