Testing API Resilience with Curl & Chaos Proxy on MacOS

You don't always need a complex UI or a mobile device to test how your API handles failures. Sometimes, you just want to run a quick curl command in your terminal to see if your backend handles a 503 error or a 7-second delay correctly.

In this guide, we'll set up a Chaos Proxy rule and route our terminal traffic through it.

Step 1: Configure the Chaos Rule

First, we need to tell Debuggo what to break. Log in to your dashboard and create a new rule with the following parameters:

Step 2: Start the Session

Click the Start button in the dashboard. Debuggo will spin up a dedicated cloud proxy instance for you.

Step 3: Trust the Certificate (MacOS)

To inspect HTTPS traffic (like https://httpbin.org), you need to trust the Debuggo CA certificate locally.

1. Download mitmproxy-ca-cert.pem from the dashboard.
2. Open Keychain Access on your Mac.
3. Drag and drop the file into the System keychain.
4. Double click the certificate, expand "Trust", and select "Always Trust".

Step 4: Run the Command

Now, use curl with the -x flag to route traffic through Debuggo. Copy your specific credentials from the dashboard.

What to expect:

• You will see a 7-second delay before the response.
• You will see HTTP/2 503 Service Unavailable instead of 200 OK.
• The -v flag will show you the full headers, confirming the traffic went through the proxy.