HTTP Probe

Last updated on Apr 13, 2026

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HTTP probe allows you to specify a URL that the experiment uses to determine the health or service availability (or other custom conditions) as part of the entry or exit criteria. The response code or body received is matched against expected values. It supports both HTTP GET and POST methods.

When to use

• Validate that a service endpoint returns the expected status code (e.g., 200 OK) during or after fault injection
• Confirm API responses contain expected data before, during, or after chaos
• Check health endpoints to verify service availability across fault boundaries
• Validate authentication-protected or TLS-secured endpoints as part of steady-state checks

Steps to configure

1. Navigate to Project Settings > Chaos Probes and click + New Probe

2. Select HTTP Probe and provide a name, and optionally a description and tags

3. Under Variables, define any reusable values you want to reference in probe properties or run properties. For each variable, specify the type (String or Number), name, value (fixed or runtime input), and whether it's required at runtime.

4. Under Probe Properties, configure:

   Field	Description
   URL	The endpoint to probe (e.g., http://localhost:8080)
   Authorization (optional)	Type: Basic or Bearer. Credentials: Base64-encoded username:password for Basic, or a bearer token
   TLS Config (optional)	CA File, Cert File, Key File: file paths for TLS certificates. Insecure Skip Verify: toggle to skip validation
   Method	GET or POST. For POST, additionally provide the Body and Content Type
   Header (optional)	Custom HTTP headers as key-value pairs

   Then select Compare Response Code or Compare Response Body and provide:

   Field	Description
   Criteria	Comparison operator. For response code: ==, !=, >=, <=, >, <, oneOf, between. For response body: contains, equal, notEqual, matches, notMatches, oneOf
   Response Code / Response Body	The expected value to compare against (e.g., 200)

   tip

   Response code and response body comparison are mutually exclusive. Choose one per probe.

5. Provide the Run Properties:

   Field	Description
   Timeout	Maximum time for probe execution (e.g., 10s)
   Interval	Time between successive executions (e.g., 2s)
   Attempt	Number of retry attempts (e.g., 1)
   Polling Interval	Time between retries (e.g., 30s)
   Initial Delay	Delay before first execution (e.g., 5s)
   Verbosity	Log detail level
   Stop On Failure (optional)	Stop the experiment if the probe fails

6. Click Create Probe