How to load a Layer to inspect its REST properties with Javascript?

[RyanSutcliffe]

I would like to fetch an ArcGIS featurelayer and get information on its properties and capabilities but I have no interest in rendering it in a map or a table. Is there a trick to load the featurelayer without inserting it in a map and view? Unless I do that I cannot figure out how to get its loaded property to be true.

var featureLayer = new FeatureLayer({
	url: url
});

featureLayer.when(function () {
// fires when layer is loaded:
	console.log(featureLayer.capabilities);
	//... do something with capabilities here...
});


// Do I really need to load the map and view modules?
var map = new Map({
	basemap: "oceans",
	layers: featureLayer
});
var view = new MapView({
	map: map,
	container: "viewDiv"
});

// after above is complete, layer will be loaded but is there
// a better way to avoid loading all this extra stuff?‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

I'm currently doing a straight fetch to get the layer's JSON information and parsing it manually but obviously would like to use the ArcGIS Javascript API to reduce the work and lines of code.

[RobertScheitlin__GISP · Accepted solution]

Ryan,

   If all you want is the capabilities and you are not going to do anything with the layer then just use an esriRequest to get the Rest Service details. Here is a sample that shows that (no map used).

https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/latest/sample-code/request/index.html

[RyanSutcliffe]

Makes sense. Looks the same as the native Fetch() method with the benefit that it works on IE. Thanks for your help.