Assay — Infrastructure Testing & Automation Runtime

Build web services with async route handlers. Handlers can call http.get, sleep, and any async builtin. SSE streaming built in. Header values can be arrays for multiple Set-Cookie, Link, etc.

http.serve(8080, {
  GET = {
    ["/login"] = function(req)
      return {
        status = 200,
        headers = {
          ["Set-Cookie"] = {
            "session=abc; Path=/",
            "csrf=xyz; Path=/",
          },
        },
        json = { ok = true },
      }
    end
  }
})

Kubernetes & GitOps

30+ K8s resource types, ArgoCD, Kargo, Flux, Traefik. In-cluster and cross-cluster auth.

local k8s = require("assay.k8s")
local pods = k8s.list("default", "pod")
local argo = require("assay.argocd")
local c = argo.client(url, {token=t})
local apps = c:applications()

AI Agent Integration

OpenClaw platform tools, GitHub PRs/issues, Gmail, Google Calendar. Build AI-powered workflows.

local oc = require("assay.openclaw")
local c = oc.client()
c:send("discord", "#ops", "Done!")
local r = c:llm_task("Summarize")
c:state_set("key", {v="1.2"})

Monitoring & Observability

Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Alertmanager. Query metrics, push logs, manage alerts and dashboards.

local prom = require("assay.prometheus")
local r = prom.query(url, "up")
assert.gt(#r, 0, "No targets")
local loki = require("assay.loki")
loki.push(url, "log line")

Security & Secrets

Vault, cert-manager, ESO, Dex, Zitadel. JWT signing, OIDC, secret management.

local vault = require("assay.vault")
local c = vault.client(url, {token=t})
local s = c:kv_get("my/secret")
local jwt = crypto.jwt_sign(
  {sub="svc"}, key, "HS256")

Infrastructure Testing

Builtin assertions, structured YAML checks with retry and backoff. Verify deployments, health endpoints, and service readiness.

# checks.yaml — retry + backoff
checks:
  - name: api-healthy
    type: http
    url: http://api:8080/health
    retries: 5
    backoff: 3s
    expect:
      status: 200

9 MB static binary — FROM scratch, 5 ms cold start, 14x smaller than postman/newman. See full size & speed comparison →

Two Modes

Auto-detected by file extension:

Lua Scripts (.lua)

#!/usr/bin/assay
local prom = require("assay.prometheus")
local result = prom.query("http://prom:9090", "up")
assert.gt(#result, 0, "No targets up")
log.info("Targets up: " .. #result)

YAML Checks (.yaml)

timeout: 120s
retries: 3
backoff: 5s
checks:
  - name: grafana-healthy
    type: http
    url: http://grafana:80/api/health
    expect:
      status: 200
      json: ".database == \"ok\""

Container Image Size

FROM scratch — no shell, no package manager, just the static binary:

Runtime	Compressed	vs Assay
Assay	9 MB	1x
alpine/python	17 MB	2x
bitnami/kubectl	35 MB	4x
Node.js alpine	57 MB	6x
alpine/k8s	60 MB	7x

Install

Pre-built Binary

# Linux (x86_64, static)
curl -L -o assay https://github.com/developerinlondon/assay/releases/latest/download/assay-linux-x86_64
chmod +x assay && sudo mv assay /usr/local/bin/

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -L -o assay https://github.com/developerinlondon/assay/releases/latest/download/assay-darwin-aarch64
chmod +x assay && sudo mv assay /usr/local/bin/

Docker

docker pull ghcr.io/developerinlondon/assay:latest

Cargo / Rust Library

# CLI tool
cargo install assay-lua

# As a Rust dependency
# Cargo.toml: assay-lua = "0.6"

mise

# .mise.toml
"github:developerinlondon/assay" = "v0.6.1"