[ryanbrunner]

Insignificant things like HTTP headers and extra fields are insignificant until they're not. In my experience, manually assembling what you expect an HTTP response to look like often leads to bugs when an "irrelevant" detail suddenly becomes relevant, like when status codes change, or fields are added in a way that breaks a client, etc.

I think recording tools can be a sharp tool, and require care, but (as a starting point), if you have an automated library that can generate recorded fixtures in a repeatable, automated fashion, you can eliminate a lot of the pain points while still reaping all of the benefits. That's how we set it up where I am - responses and fixtures are generated as part of a full suite execution, but persist with individual test runs.