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🗂ī¸ Expectation groups and match order

Expectations live either in a group or directly in the Ungrouped section at the bottom of the list. Groups are more than folders: they take part in deciding which expectation answers a request, and they can be switched off as a whole.

Expectation groups

Creating a group​

Click the group button next to Add Expectation. A group has a name, a priority and an active flag. New expectations can be created directly into a group by choosing it in the Add expectation dialog; existing ones can be moved with the timing editor.

Priority and active flag​

FieldEffect
Priority (P badge)Higher priority wins.
Active switchAn inactive group is skipped entirely, as if its expectations did not exist.

Both are shown in the group header. The same two fields exist on every expectation itself (in Timing & state).

The match order​

When a request arrives, LiveMock walks the expectations in this order and takes the first one whose matchers all match:

  1. Groups and ungrouped expectations are ranked together. A group counts as one block; every ungrouped expectation is a block of its own. Blocks are ordered by (priority, creation time), both descending - a higher priority first, and on a tie the more recently created block wins.
  2. Inside a group, its members are ordered the same way: by (priority, creation time), descending.
  3. The first active expectation, with an action, whose matchers all succeed answers the request. An expectation without an action is skipped. The comparison never comes back to a later block.

In other words: a block with higher priority is compared first, and all of its expectations are considered before the next block, even if the next block contains an expectation with a higher individual priority.

Typical setup
  • Put specific, high-priority rules (a single failing endpoint, an error case) in a group with a high priority.
  • Keep broad catch-alls - path starts with / returning 404 - ungrouped with priority 0, so they only apply when nothing more specific matched.

Deleting a group​

Deleting a group also deletes the expectations inside it (the request log is kept, like when deleting a single expectation). There is no undo, so check the group contents before deleting it.

See also​