With Supertest, can I create an alternative request with some headers set by default?

If i remember correctly in superagent one can pass a hash to set

agent.set({key:value,key2:value2})

let me know if it doesnt work with supertest.

You could use a common routine to build your "default" headers as an object and pass them to the request:

//# file:config.js

var config = { 
  authorization: { "Authorization":"authvalue" }
}

// Content-Type left out because supertest will use Content-Type json when you use the appropriate method

module.exports = config;

And now in your test.js:

//# file:test.js

var request = require("supertest");
var config = require("./config");

request = request(config.baseUrl)
var commonHeaders = { "authorization":"TokenValueASDF" };

describe("testing", function() {
  it.should('present authorization header to server', function(done) {
    request.get('/someurl')
      .set(commonHeaders)
      .set({"X-TestSpecificHeader":"Value"})
      .expect(200,done) //if not authorized you'd get 401
  })

})

Also, if you need to have your app get that token value at runtime (most likely) see this article for using a requested token value that is generated for the tests: https://jaketrent.com/post/authenticated-supertest-tests/

You can use the library superagent-defaults as follows:

installation

npm install --save-dev supertest superagent-defaults

usage

var defaults = require('superagent-defaults');
var supertest = require('supertest');

var request = defaults(supertest(app)); // or url

// set the default headers
request.set(commonHeaders);

// use as usually

version

• supertest v3.0.0
• superagent-defaults v0.1.14