14.43Direct setup vs going through the system under test

Suppose you're testing:

update existing customer

For setup, should you create the initial Account through:

the same Mule POST /customers

or:

Salesforce API directly

Both are useful for different goals.

Through Mule

More realistic but couples setup to functionality under test.

Directly

Better isolation:

arrange state
without exercising the same code
you're about to test

For many tests I'd prefer direct Salesforce/API setup.